Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

We are seeking a compassionate and enthusiastic Clinical Psychologist to provide specialist psychological assessments, formulations and evidence-based interventions to adults under the care of the hearing implant service (Emmeline Centre) and audiology department at CUH.  You will work closely with the wider multidisciplinary team, contributing to the assessment pathway for hearing implants, decisions regarding elective surgery, and offering assessments, formulations and psychological interventions for psychological difficulties related to hearing impairment and hearing implant surgery. You will also work with patients being seen in the tinnitus clinic in cases where significant mental health conditions may be contributing to symptoms.

CPFT’s Psychological Medicine Service includes Liaison Psychiatry and Clinical Health Psychology for both adults and children and their families. There are over fifty Clinical Psychologists working across Adult and Paediatric Psychology. Some of these posts are embedded with specialist teams, whilst others are part of the general services.  Clinical Psychologists have a professional network within Psychological Medicine and are also part of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust’s (CPFT) professional group. The service provides placements for the University of East Anglia’s Doctorate in Clinical Psychology.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will provide psychological expertise in psychological medicine and service development and leadership.  There is ample potential to collaborate with other relevant services, including our hearing implant paediatric psychology service.  You will also be able to contribute to local, regional, and national initiatives and develop research opportunities as well as a long-term business case for funding.

You will be part of CPFT’s Psychological Medicine Service which has expertise in a range of therapeutic modalities, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).  There are excellent opportunities to develop skills and attend relevant CPD in clinical health psychology within this thriving and expanding service.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

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

To provide specialist psychological assessments of patients referred to the psychological medicine service, 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 patients, significant other and others involved in the patient’s care.

To develop psychological formulations of presenting problems or situations that integrate information from assessments within a coherent framework that draws upon psychological theory and evidence and which incorporates interpersonal, societal, cultural and biological factors as well as health needs and impact of health problems on the patient and wider system.

To develop and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a patient’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patient’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of hospital and community-based settings.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams, 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 patient, family, carers or group. To do this in the context of health and surgical interventions.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment,  psychological formulation, treatment and discharge of patients and manage and maintain a caseload in line with service guidelines.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other multidisciplinary professionals, both within hospital and community settings, contributing directly to patients’ psychological formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all patients of the service, across the designated area and agencies serving the patient group.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual patients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures.