Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

We are seeking an HCPC registered Band 7/8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join our well established multidisciplinary mental health and memory assessment services within Older People’s Services in Richmond (0.3) and Sutton (0.2). The post is fixed term for 12 months (2026), providing cover for staff movement due to maternity leave elsewhere in the service. You will be joining other established Clinical Psychologists based within the same services, providing neuropsychological assessments for dementia and psychological therapies for older people.

Psychology is highly valued within our services and you will be well supported within Older People’s Psychology, where CPD and career development are encouraged. We have specialist pathway psychologist leads in Neuropsychological Assessment, Therapies, and Distressed Behaviour in Dementia, and you will receive regular individual supervision and support from senior psychologists in the service as well as opportunities for regular peer supervision and CPD. Our psychologists practice a range of therapeutic models and we have staff working towards the Specialist Register of Clinical Neuropsychologists. The service has strong links with the University of Surrey Clinical Psychology Doctoral Training Program, providing regular placements and program teaching.

We are happy to support flexible working hours to fit with other commitments and would consider applicants who only wish to work in one of the locations.

Main duties of the job

Within the Recovery & Support Team you will provide direct therapeutic work for service users age 75+ with severe and enduring mental health problems and their families. Within the Memory Assessment Service you will work directly with service users of any age with suspected dementia providing neuropsychological assessments of dementia and therapeutic work. Both roles involve MDT working including providing consultation and complex case discussions. You will be encouraged to contribute towards service improvement, either by supporting local Quality Improvement Initiatives or larger Trust wide projects.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• 1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team 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 clients, family members, and others involved in the client’s care.

2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, 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, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

4. 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 individual, family or group.

5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

7. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

9. To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.

10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

11. To work with older people in community care homes and day centres who are displaying behavioural and psychological symptoms as a result of their mental health.

12. To undertake specific assessment of individual service users with challenging behaviour and to contribute to the formulation and implementation of a multi-disciplinary care plan.