Highly Specialised Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

Serving people with learning disabilities in the London Borough of Harrow, within the Harrow Community Learning Disabilities Service.

This is an integrated health and social care multidisciplinary service.

The service also works collaboratively with other local health and social care provider services who work with adults with learning disabilities, who also access mainstream services to ensure that outcomes are met.

The post holder will provide specialist clinical service to adults with learning disability and their families/carers including specialist assessments and implement specialist psychological interventions.

The post holder will facilitate a key role in contributing to the continuing development of the overall psychology service within the team.

The postholder will manage their individual defined caseload including complex cases independently, evidencing problem solving and clinical reasoning skills in line with evidence based and client-centred principles.

You will be involved in clinical research and development of the varied pathways as deemed appropriate.

Main duties of the job

• Ensure a high standard of psychological clinical care for the clients and families within Harrow with diagnosis of LD
• Play a key role in the advanced assessment and treatment of clients who may also have acute, chronic or complex presentation and determine clinical diagnosis and intervention required
• Ability to assess clients’ needs and signpost to other services as appropriate and work as an autonomous practitioner
• Communicate effectively within the health and social care multi-agencies settings regarding client care and treatment plans
• Communicate with other MDT members within the team and wider SMT regarding policies, service development and management plans
• Undertake a significant clinical caseload working under supervision in collaboration with other agencies and health and social care professionals
• Ensure there is robust clinical supervisory structures for more junior psychologists including in training.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Responsible for offering comprehensive specialist assessments to adults with learning disabilities, their families and paid carers when the need for psychological assessment is indicated and use this as the basis for establishing and evaluating therapeutic interventions. This includes carrying out specialist cognitive psychometric assessments as necessary and interpret the results of these, to make appropriate formulations and recommendations for interventions.

• Interpret the results of these assessments and make appropriate psychological formulations, judgements and recommendations. This process involves careful consideration, drawing on specialist psychological knowledge of theory and models to make sense of complex facts or situations.

• Work autonomously in a variety of work contexts, including work in the community which may at times involve working with clients with complex needs in their own home. This includes face to face sessions with individual clients and families.

• Verbally communicating complex and sensitive information often requiring empathy and reassurance in potentially hostile or highly emotive environments.

• Communicate complex information and formulations to a range of different people, including families and carers, service users, and professionals, including other psychologists and other disciplines, both within the team and outside agencies.

• Adapt verbal and non-verbal communication to facilitate clients’ understanding.

• Liaise appropriately with all agencies involved and keep them informed of relevant information and recommended guidelines necessary to provide high standards of care for clients

• Provide a clinical service to clients from a range of minority ethnic populations and provide an appropriate specialist person-centered approach of care while considering language, religion, cultural beliefs and customs and adapt assessment, formulation and intervention as appropriate.

• Communicate across language and cultural barriers, jointly working with and offering debriefing and/or supervision to interpreters as required.

• Work with multi- disciplinary colleagues around complex cases, providing this in a setting which is most appropriate to the client and/or service needs.

• Use a broad theoretical knowledge base and specialist clinical skills to develop and support the psychological skills of other staff members, professionals paid and unpaid carers via the development and delivery of teaching, training, supervision, support and consultation.

• Responsible for providing a psychological perspective/psychological expertise for service or team activities, including clinical care, team or service dynamics, team or service organisation, in a range of settings, e.g. case discussions and team meetings.

• Receive regular clinical management supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines to ensure high quality work, to engage in the Individual Performance Review process and continuing professional development and generally work within a clinical governance framework.

• Plan and prioritise own clinical workload and work with multi-disciplinary colleagues around complex cases, providing this in a setting which is most appropriate to the client and/or service needs.

• To organise own day-to-day activities, plan and prioritise clinical and non-clinical workload.

• Responsibility for clinical supervision of trainee and trained clinical psychologists and teaching and training of staff of other disciplines in the wider team and in other statutory and voluntary sector agencies in the wider community.

• To participate in Trust appraisal and be committed to ongoing continuing professional development including participation in further specialist training as agreed with supervisor/head of department.

• Develop and deliver, jointly with other psychologists where appropriate, teaching activities for clinical psychology doctoral training programmes and in-service training programmes within the team and the Trust

• Ensure documentation and care plans are comprehensive and of the highest standard in line with Trust Policy.

• Maintain and update research knowledge and skills.

• Develop and implement service related and/or other academic research projects.

• Assist in the monitoring, review and evaluation of the learning disabilities psychology team, the community team, and in conjunction with other professionals, the work of teams or facilities.

• Participate in the evaluation of services, including designing audits, collecting and monitoring data as required.

• Formulate and undertake service-related research and audit and to support other staff in research activities

• Disseminate findings through publication where possible

Human Resources Professional registration  • As Band 8a psychologist you are expected to maintain your registration with the HCPC registration. Your employment depends on you doing this and failure to remain registered or to comply with the Codes of Practice may result in temporary downgrading, suspension from duty and/or disciplinary action which may result in the termination of your employment.  • You are required to advise the Trust if the HCPC in any way limits or changes the terms of your registration. Throughout your employment with the Trust, if requested you are required to provide your manager with documentary evidence of your registration with HCPC

• Safeguarding  • As a Band 8a psychologist you have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and adults at risk of abuse. • You should be aware of local safeguarding procedures and how to contact named professionals for advice and support as well as reporting any concerns.  • You will be supported with the supervision and training needed to recognise and act on welfare concerns and to respond to the needs of children and adults.  • You have a responsibility to ensure that you are up to date with the safeguarding training required for all Band 8a psychologists.
• Infection Control and Waste Disposal  • Infection prevention and control remain the responsibility of all staff.  • As a Band 8a psychologist all duties must be carried out in accordance with the Trust hand hygiene and infection control policies and procedures.
• Data Protection, Confidentiality and Access to Health Records  • As a Band 8a Psychologist who contributes to patients’ health records you are expected to be familiar with, and adhere to, the Trust’s Care Records Policy and accompanying documentation.  • As a Band 8a psychologist you are likely to have access to computerised data systems and you are required to obtain, process and/or use information held in these systems in a fair and lawful way. You must hold data only for the specific registered purpose and not to use or disclose it in any way incompatible with such purpose.
• Promoting Equality and Diversity  • Central and North West London aims to ensure that no job applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, marital/partnership status, race, religion, age, creed, colour, ethnic origin, disability, part time working status and real or suspected HIV/AIDS status.  • Everyone has a personal responsibility to promote and develop a culture that promotes equality and values diversity but as a Band 8a psychologist you manage and supervise others and have the additional managerial responsibility to ensure that the team you work in does not discriminate, harass or bully.
• Health and Safety and Risk management  • As an employee you must be aware of the responsibilities placed on you under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974), and to ensure that agreed safety procedures are carried out to maintain a safe environment for employees, patients and visitors. • As a Band 8a psychologist, like all staff members, you are accountable, through the terms and conditions of your employment, professional regulations, clinical governance and statutory health and safety regulations, and are responsible for reporting incidents, being aware of the risk management strategy and emergency procedures and attendance at training as required.  • All staff members have a responsibility to manage risk within their sphere of responsibility. It is a statutory duty to take reasonable care of their own safety and the safety of others who may be affected by acts or omissions.  In situations where significant risks have been identified and where local control measures are potentially inadequate, managers are responsible for bringing these risks to the attention of the Borough Director and the relevant governance committee.
• Staff Support  • The Trust is committed to ensuring that you achieve a good work/life balance, have access to a wide range of support including flexible working options, childcare support and many training and development opportunities

JOB DESCRIPTION AGREEMENT

This job description is intended as a guide to the main duties of the post and is not intended to be a prescriptive document. Duties and base of work may change to meet the needs of the service or because of the introduction of new technology. This job description may be reviewed from time to time and changed, after consultation with the postholder.

Service Specific Responsibilities

The service specific responsibilities attached to this Band 8a post are explained in the Service Specific Section attached to this Job Description and attached Person Specification.