Clinical Nurse Specialist Lead for Personality Disorder - Primary Care

Job overview

Specialist Nurse Practitioner – Relational & Emotional Difficulties Service (REDS)

Are you a reflective, compassionate, and highly motivated nurse who thrives on building meaningful therapeutic relationships? Do you enjoy working collaboratively across systems to support people with complex emotional needs? If so, we’d love to hear from you.

We are seeking a Specialist Nurse Practitioner to join the Relational and Emotional Difficulties Service (REDS)—a psychologically led pathway, sat within the Personality Disorder Pathway, supporting individuals in primary care who experience significant challenges with emotional regulation and relationships. Many of the people we work with present with traits or a diagnosis of personality disorder, typically of moderate severity.

Why Join Us?

This is a unique opportunity to work at the interface of primary care and specialist psychological services, shaping how the system responds to people with complex emotional needs. You’ll be part of a warm, reflective, and forward‑thinking team that values curiosity, compassion, and high‑quality care.

Main duties of the job

About the Service

REDS is a dynamic, multidisciplinary team comprising psychologists, psychological therapists, Assistant Psychologists, Specialist Liaison Nurses, and dedicated support staff. We work in partnership with CPSL MIND, who co-facilitate a number of our treatment groups. We work closely with the Personality Disorder Community Service, ensuring a coherent and compassionate approach across the system.

In this role, you will be embedded within the Cambridge Primary Care Network, working across 22 GP practices. You’ll become a trusted link between primary care and REDS, helping to ensure that people with complex emotional needs receive thoughtful, well‑coordinated support.

About You

We’re looking for someone who is:

• Confident and knowledgeable in working with personality disorder and complex emotional needs.
• Skilled at prioritising and managing a varied workload across multiple sites (this is a hybrid role).
• Thoughtful, collaborative, and committed to psychologically informed practice.
• Keen to contribute to service development and to be an active voice within a passionate, supportive team.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities.

What You’ll Be Doing

This is a varied and influential role where your clinical expertise will make a real difference. Key responsibilities include:

• Supporting GPs and primary care teams through consultation, advice, guidance, and training.
• Indirect clinical work: Offering psychologically informed formulation, treatment, and management suggestions for individual patients.
• Contributing to and leading virtual forums for wider agencies to strengthen system-wide understanding and management of personality‑related difficulties.
• Attending virtual GP clinics alongside PCMHS colleagues to help shape care planning for people with complex emotional needs.
• Providing supervision to PCMH practitioners, supporting high‑quality assessments and referrals into REDS.
• Acting as a crucial liaison between primary care and REDS, offering feedback on referrals and contributing to service development.
• Supporting and guiding junior REDS practitioners and participating actively in REDS team meetings and clinical discussions.
• Providing prescribing and deprescribing support at a primary care level, for those experiencing difficulties associated with personality disorder or who have a diagnosed personality disorder. This includes responding to requests for advice and guidance from primary care and may involve reviewing and directly prescribing/deprescribing, within the clinicians scope of practice.

Please note for this role you will be required to travel independently around the county meeting strict time deadlines. You will need to hold a full UK driving licence* and have use of a vehicle. You cannot use public transport for this role as this is not a reliable form of transport and will not allow you to meet service needs. Please confirm in your application that you meet the specified criteria.

*DVLA have a number of reciprocal arrangements with overseas countries, for further information please visit the DVLA website