Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Summary:

To provide a qualified clinical psychology service to clients of the Bromley Stroke Rehabilitation Team (BSRT) across all sectors of care; providing highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy at the same time as offering advice and consultation on clients psychological care to non- psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the teams policies and procedures. To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

Key Result Areas:

• To provide specialist psychological assessments to BSRT clients based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.

• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings

• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

• To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans

• To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

• To initiate appropriate research and provide research advise and supervision to other staff undertaking research within the service.

Workforce

• To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.

• To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

• To represent the BSRT service at Directorate level

• To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures.

Financial

• Have an understanding of ward/department budgets and how the division may become more cost-effective. Work within budgetary requirements whilst maintaining standards of care.

• Participate in the management of skill mix issues, stock control, and available Resources.

Partnerships

• Take an active role in developing and maintaining effective communication with members of the interprofessional team, patients, and relatives about difficult matters in difficult situations.

General

• To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holders professional and service manager(s).

• To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self- governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.

• To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.

Person Specification

Qualifications and Training

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology
• completion of models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the BPS.
• HCPC registration

Desirable

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology

Experience

Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient, and assessment and intervention with patients with a wide variety of neurological deficits.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist over a minimum of 18 months, or an alternative agreed by the Head of Psychology.

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts

Other

Essential

• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.

Desirable

• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.

Knowledge

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Knowledge of the evidence base, management and treatment models for early intervention psychosis
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the HPC and BPS.

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website .

Employer details

Employer name

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust

Address

University Hospital Lewisham

Lewisham high street

London

SE13 6LH

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