8b Clinical Lead Older Adult Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

This is a very exciting 12 Month Secondment opportunity to join an exceptional Psychological Service in the Mental Health Services for Older People (MHSOP) of Hertfordshire Partnership University Foundation NHS Trust.  MHSOP provides comprehensive mental health and community services for the whole of Hertfordshire for people with suspected dementia and mental health conditions over the age of 65.  This 12 month position is designed to provide expert psychological and neuropsychological assessment, intervention and consultation to specialist MHSOP community services covering the North of Hertfordshire in association with the current postholder. You will have the chance to develop the psychological offer in this service and to collaborate with colleagues on further expanding an innovative therapeutic culture and interventions in the older adult service.  A wide variety of psychological interventions and models, ranging from specialist neuropsychological assessment and interventions to psychological work with older people with dementia and highly complex mental health needs are used in the service, with an increasing focus on service user and carer co-production and continuous quality improvement.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder is responsible for the systematic provision of high quality mental health services to clients of the MHSOP service. This will include:

Provision of clinical psychological assessment, including neuropsychological assessment and specialist psychological interventions to service users in the memory clinics and other older person’s services.

Primary responsibility for support and supervision to qualified and unqualified team members delivering psychological assessment and interventions.

Supervision of assistant psychologist in memory clinics (EMDASS).

Monitoring referrals and management of the waiting list in conjunction with clinical psychology colleagues.

Monitoring the capacity of the service and in conjunction with the professional lead for MHSOP psychological therapies, identifying new initiatives to provide optimum service delivery.

Deputising for Head of MHSOP Psychology as appropriate.

Contributing to and supporting the delivery of high quality psychological therapies throughout East and North Hertfordshire.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You will be joining an established, expert MHSOP psychology service dedicated to making the health and lives of older people richer and better as part of highly collaborative and appreciative mental health teams and services in a Trust which is rated as Outstanding by the CQC.  MHSOP Psychology has excellent relationships with all other psychological services in the Trust and opportunities for Continuing Professional Development are well established. The service and the Trust also have well developed relationships, both clinical and research, with a number of Higher Education Institutions and is involved in several research studies. MHSOP Psychology regularly takes trainee clinical psychologists on placement from the University of Hertfordshire Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy) and supervises a number of Small Scale and Major Research trainee projects.