Band 8c - Consultant Clinical Psychologist - Local AWP Base

Job overview

To provide specialist integrated clinical leadership and management with the specialty setting as well as across the system (both internally and externally as required), especially the Psychological Therapies aspects and strategic development of the specialty in relation to psychological therapies and psychologically informed interventions.

To lead the provision of trauma informed care, underpinned by a culture of learning, continuous evaluation and compassionate, inclusive and collective leadership.

Main duties of the job

1. To manage capacity in response to service demand and act as part of the wider relevant locality management team.

2. To provide leadership and expertise to Psychological Professionals within and beyond the speciality setting.

3. To lead Psychological Therapies service development, including the delivery of integrated care with existing services and the development of the evidence base via research and evaluation.

4. To participate in and provide specialist advice to relevant aspects of policy making, strategic planning, management and clinical governance in the locality.

5. To carry a specialist caseload of highly complex cases,   providing advice and consultancy for patients and specialist clinical supervision to professionals.

6. To work in partnership with Service Users, their significant others, Management, Finance, corporate services, human resources, VCSE (voluntary, charity and social enterprise) organisations to co-produce the design, development and delivery of services.

7. To work with senior managers and system partners to explore and pursue business opportunities consistent with the divisional business plan.

8. To work across systems/providers to ensure effective pathways for Service Users.

9. To work alongside the ICB and ICS across both BNSSG and BSW to have an active role in strategic development

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

A.  MANAGEMENT AND SERVICE DEVELOPMENT (up to half time)

1.      To manage and provide strategic leadership to the Psychological Professions in the services, ensuring that everyone receives support, supervision, annual appraisals and a development plan which ensures on-going service development that fits the needs and priorities of each sector.  To manage the capacity of the service in line with demand and access requirements, always seeking ways in which to do so more efficiently.

2.      To provide professional guidance and advice to ensure professional standards are maintained across all psychological professions including those employed by the wider system.

3.      To liaise with the senior managers to ensure that an appropriate range of services are provided by psychological professions within relevant services, and those working on external service level agreements (including working with primary care).

4.      The post holder will ensure the delivery of performance targets and standards across the Services.

5.      To take a lead role in service/business development and performance monitoring of Psychological Therapies in the Area. This includes horizon scanning for new service development opportunities which support the Business Plan, especially those working with partner agencies.

6.      To identify gaps in service provision and also to seek opportunities for the development of Psychological Therapies within defined frameworks and with agreement from senior managers.

7.      To lead the continued development of service models, working closely with colleagues to ensure alignment.

8.      To be a source of psychological expertise to managers, professional colleagues and ICB’s on both public and internal matters.

9.      To deal with complaints and disciplinary matters in liaison with other managers and professional leads               both within and outside of Psychological Therapies, especially those of a particularly complex nature

10.  To support the negotiation of Service Level Agreements for psychological therapy provision in the Service and externally to other agencies, working closely with relevant senior managers.

11.  To convene and chair regular psychological therapy meetings as appropriate.

12.  To establish a framework for effective management of psychological professions in the Locality.

13.   The post holder will contribute to the drawing up of department/service budgets.

14.  To ensure that Trust Health and Safety Regulations are adopted within the Psychological Therapies Pathways.

15.  To identify appropriate staffing levels and skill mix of Psychological Professions, drawing on advice from relevant colleagues as required.

16.  To promote the Trust in professional networks and to ensure that other Psychological Professionals do likewise in specific situations relevant to their posts and responsibilities.

B. CLINICAL (Note psychological treatment covers Psychology, CBT, Arts Psychotherapy, Family Therapy and Psychotherapy):

1.      To provide a highly developed Clinical Service comprising psychological/assessment and therapy, consultation and teaching and supervision.

2.      To formulate plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a service user’s mental health problems based upon an appropriate conceptual framework, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

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

4.      To make highly skilled evaluations and 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.

5.      To be responsible for ensuring that all members of the clinical team have access to a psychologically based framework for the understanding and care of service users of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological knowledge, research and theory.

6.      To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service users under their care to service users, significant others, relatives and other staff and respond appropriately in situations where there is hostility or a highly charged emotional atmosphere.

7.      To receive appropriate Clinical and Caseload supervision for all aspects of clinical work.

8.      To fully implement the Integrated Care Programme Approach in all aspects of clinical work.

C.  PROFESSIONAL:

1.      To fully observe relevant Professional Practice Guidelines.

2.      To work with Professional Leads to maintain and further develop high standards of practice, through co-operative work and peer supervision with other Psychological Professions within and outside the Trust.

3.      To be aware of and adhere to Trust policies and procedures.

D.  CLINICAL AND PRACTICE GOVERNANCE:

1.      To support senior managers in the development and implementation of effective Clinical Governance across the Psychological Professions.

2.      To participate in Clinical Governance processes in the Trust.

3.      To act as a resource for clinical audit, and to develop and apply measures to monitor and evaluate clinical work among psychological therapists in the area.

4.      To focus capacity on the delivery of effective, evidence-based interventions (e.g. as recommended by NICE).

E.    TRAINING AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT:

1.      To provide advanced training for specialist practitioners within the Trust and to related agencies where agreed.

2.      To promote the Trust by developing a specialist profile through publications, national and international conference presentations and the provision of specialist training to various groups nationally.

3.      With other senior managers and the Learning & Development Team, to ensure a training plan is in place to meet the needs of Psychological Professions

4.      To ensure that all psychological therapists in the Locality have an on-going training plan with annual appraisals and job planning.

5.      To agree a plan for personal development with senior managers and participate in an Annual Review.

6.      To support the development of training and supervision mechanisms to train a range of other professional groups in the delivery of psychological interventions.

G.  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT:

1.      To support, facilitate and supervise R&D activities by Psychological Professions.

2.      To undertake research in topic areas relevant to the work of the service and to initiate and implement project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to service users and their families.

H.  INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND RESOURCES:

1.      To be responsible for the utilisation of IT equipment by Psychological Therapy staff within the Locality.

2.      To use IT equipment to prepare reports, for teaching presentations, to record activity data and for the analysis of data from research and audit.

3.      To maintain skills in IT, updating where necessary, in order to carry out the tasks in 2 above effectively.

I.     COMMUNICATIONS AND KEY WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

To be responsible for establishing good working relationships and communications with Psychological Therapy staff, staff from other professions, and other agencies.

To establish effective working relationships in the Area and across the LDU (as appropriate) with:

• Locality Managers
• Divisional Managers
• Services Managers
• Modern Matrons
• Team Managers
• Voluntary Organisation Managers and Representatives
• Users/Significant others Representatives
• Police, Probation Service
• Corporate Trust Services:   Governance, HR, Training, Finance, etc.
• ICBs
• Primary mental healthcare/IAPT services