Principal Clinical / Counselling Psychologist


Location
Gosport, England; Fareham, England
Salary
£66582.00 to £77368.00
Profession
Psychologist
Grade
Band 8
Deadline
01 Nov 2026
Contract Type
Permanent
Posted Date
19 Oct 2026
Medical Protection — the side of locally employed doctors from £83

Job requirements

Essential

36 listed

Requirements the employer expects applicants to meet.

  • Experience

    In depth experience of working as a senior clinical psychologist.

  • Experience

    Experience of working with a wide variety of patient groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings.

  • Experience

    Maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.

  • Experience

    Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for patients psychological care and treatment, within the context of a multi-professional care plan.

  • Experience

    Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.

  • Experience

    Experience of managing staff.

  • Experience

    Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.

  • Experience

    Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to patients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.

  • Experience

    Well developed knowledge of the theory and practice of working with severe and enduring mental health problems.

  • Experience

    Competency in the application of interventions for people who have severe and enduring mental health problems.

  • Experience

    Ability to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with individuals and indirectly via supervision of other staff.

  • Experience

    Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non professional groups.

  • Experience

    Ability to constructively manage situations and people at times of conflict.

  • Experience

    Ability to work collaboratively with senior managers and staff in service delivery and developments.

  • Experience

    Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practised within the field of clinical psychology.

  • Experience

    Knowledge of legislation in relation to the patient group and mental health.

  • Experience

    Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS and HCPC.

  • Experience

    Ability to organise own workload effectively, prioritising a complex range of tasks and responsibilities to meet agreed deadlines

  • Experience

    Knowledge of and a commitment to a recovery focused approach and to positive risk taking.

  • Experience

    Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.

  • Experience

    Ability to identify and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.

  • Experience

    Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.

  • Experience

    IT skills including email, word processing and basic databases.

  • Experience

    Interest in models of service delivery and an ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi-disciplinary mental health services.

  • Experience

    An ability to travel between sites as required.

  • Qualifications

    Doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.

  • Qualifications

    Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience.

  • Qualifications

    Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist.

  • Qualifications

    Accredited or well experienced in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy

  • Additional Criteria

    Providing compassionate, safe care

  • Additional Criteria

    Listening

  • Additional Criteria

    Communicating clearly

  • Additional Criteria

    Building relationships

  • Additional Criteria

    Acting with honesty and integrity

  • Additional Criteria

    Taking responsibility

  • Additional Criteria

    Doing what we say we will do

Desirable

3 listed

Additional qualities the employer would prefer.

  • Qualifications

    Post-doctoral training in a specialised area of psychological therapy.

  • Qualifications

    Accreditation as a therapist with BABCP ACAT or similar body.

  • Qualifications

    Management / leadership training.

Job summary

This is an exciting clinical leadership role in which you will be challenged and supported to develop your potential. Visionary and strategic in approach, you will champion a culture based on principles of recovery, compassion, choice, and personalised care.

You will be committed to providing evidence-based practice and will be aware of current national drivers relating to mental health services for people with Complex Emotional Needs. Working closely with the Consultant Clinical Psychologist, you will be central to the development of treatment pathway for people with complex emotional needs, pulling together established DBT and CAT practitioners and working alongside other Principle Psychologists in the mood disorder pathway and Psychosis Pathway.

You will offer supervision, training and reflective practice to staff within the service. You will also devote some time to direct clinical work alongside a dedicated team of therapists.

Main duties of the job

As a senior clinician with substantial clinical experience and post-qualification training, the post-holder will provide a high level of psychological expertise within the Community Mental Health Service.

Working with the leadership team, clinical staff and peer support staff towards the development and maintenance of a multi-professional therapeutic environment will aim to provide the highest quality psychologically informed care for adults with severe mental health problems.

The postholder will also provide management and specialist clinical supervision to other psychological professionals working within the Community Mental Health Teams in Fareham CMHT and Gosport CMHT. Where there may be gaps in the service, providing support to other patches within the division in agreement with the Lead Psychologist. The duties will include ensuring job planning, pathways being embedded in their geographical patch and providing performance and quality data to the Lead Consultant Clinical Psychologist.

The post holder will provide strategic oversight to the Complex Emotional Needs Pathway to ensure equitable provisions for patients under secondary care in the PSEH division. The role has a potential to develop across the division. This will include bringing alignment to the DBT teams within the division and holding conversation with other teams to support the development of complex emotional needs offer.

About us

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides joined-up mental and physical healthcare for around two million people across our communities. With over 13,000 staff working in the community and local hospitals, we deliver care at every stage of life, helping people live their best and healthiest lives.

Our mental health services include community-based support and early intervention in psychosis (EIP) for both adults and young people, alongside a network of specialist inpatient wards covering forensic, learning disability, eating disorder and older person's care.

We deliver extensive physical health services too, from urgent community response teams helping frail and older patients remain safely at home, to hospitals at home teams providing acute-level care in familiar surroundings. Our neurological services offer rehabilitation and treatment for conditions including Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, Motor Neurone Disease, Head Injury, Cerebral Palsy and Stroke. Across Hampshire, our community hospitals provide inpatient rehabilitation as a step down from acute care, and our dedicated teams also staff Treetops Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Portsmouth, offering expert, compassionate support.

Everything we do is underpinned by our CARE values of compassion, accountability, respect and excellence

Details

  • Date posted: 19 October 2026
  • Pay scheme: Agenda for change
  • Band: Band 8b
  • Salary: £66,582 to £77,368 a year Please note for part time hours the salary will be pro rata
  • Contract: Permanent
  • Working pattern: Part-time, Flexible working
  • Reference number: 348-PSE-12797
  • Job locations: Hewat Centre, Gosport War Memorial Hospital, Bury Road, Gosport, Hampshire, PO12 3PW, United Kingdom, Fareham Health Centre, Osborn Road, Fareham, Hampshire, PO16 7ER, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities

Further information about the Trust and this role can be found on the Job Description and Person Specification document attached. It is important to us that we ensure our recruitment processes are accessible and inclusive to everyone - if as a potential candidate you are concerned a person specification may prevent or restrict your application for employment as a result of unintentional barriers on the grounds of your sex, race, age, sexual orientation, religion/belief or disability please initially contact the Trust's Recruitment team - detailed in the advert. The Trust will seek to resolve this issue wherever possible.

We are happy to talk Flexible Working - all requests for flexible working options can be discussed as part of the interview process.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

WhatsApp job alerts

Get instant WhatsApp alerts for Band 8 Psychology roles in Gosport

Create your Job Clerk account first. We'll collect your alert preferences during onboarding and help you turn on WhatsApp notifications for matching healthcare roles.

Sign up for WhatsApp alerts

Applying for this NHS job

This advert is for Principal Clinical / Counselling Psychologist with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in Gosport, England; Fareham, England. It is listed as a Band 8 Psychologist role. The advertised salary is £66582.00 to £77368.00. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 01 Nov 2026.

Before you apply, compare the job description with the person specification and mirror the employer's essential criteria in your supporting information. Use the vacancy title, employer, location, salary, contract type, closing date and posted date (19 Oct 2026) to decide whether this role fits your current NHSjob search. If the employer can close applications early, prepare the application before the stated deadline rather than waiting for the final day.

For more context, review related Job Clerk pages for the same profession, band or location where they exist, then use the application-support guides to tailor your statement and prepare for interview.