Principal Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Job overview

The post holder will work under the umbrella of the Clinical Health Psychology service across the specialisms of obesity, pain management, limb reconstruction, general medicine and HIV and be responsible for the continuing development of the psychological provision in the services and pathways for patients of the Luton and Dunstable hospital. This will include outpatient clinics with specific emphasis on the areas of pre-bariatric psychological assessment, supervision of clinical teams, and cognitive assessment in the HIV population. A proportion of the workload will be focused on developing the skills of the Luton and Dunstable workforce to enable the provision of stepped, psychologically informed care.

Main duties of the job

The post holder is responsible for the provision of well developed, highly specialist psychological input, particularly those vulnerable to poor health outcomes through poverty and other social inequalities, disabilities and physical health conditions. The post holder is also responsible for the management, development and leadership of staff, including those from different backgrounds and training. The post holder will take delegated responsibility for the recruitment, selection and retention of psychological therapists and participate in recruitment processes for other staff. In addition, the post holder will contribute to the investigations of complaints, grievances, capability and disciplinary procedures as required by senior managers.

Psychologically based provision is offered at the individual, group, couple and family level through to teams, systems and community level. The post holder will offer well developed highly specialist psychological assessments, psychological formulations and delivery of psychological interventions to the communities we serve. Service users seen by the post holder will include those who have experienced high levels of distress and highly complex mental health difficulties. Service users may present with a high level of risk to both themselves and sometimes to other people. Assessments and interventions will be primarily delivered within hospital-based settings.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Provide well developed, highly specialist psychological assessments, based on the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources (including psychological tests, measures/rating scales including Recovery measures and Quality of Life measures, direct and indirect observation and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and involved others.)
• To use the ecological model of formulation to understand with the person their symptoms and behaviours in relation to their experiences and wider social context.
• Formulate plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of mental health problems across a range of care settings at population, systemic and individual levels, based upon a theoretical knowledge base to analyse, interpret and compare highly complex information in order to design specialist programmes of treatment for individuals, groups and families, care systems and populations tailored to individual need.
• To provide well developed, highly specialist expertise andpsychological advice, guidance and consultation to other multidisciplinary professionals contributing directly to service users’ formulation, diagnosis and service planning. Ensure that multidisciplinary colleagues have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding the care of service users including the Recovery Approach.
• To undertake well developed, highly specialist risk assessment and management and to provide highly specialist advice on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management holding in mind the relevant legal frameworks.
• To be responsible for providing and receiving highly complex,sensitive, distressing and emotional information in relation to health issues where there are often barriers to acceptance.
• To spend sustained amounts of time with service users who may be aggressive and hostile, who may have poor communication skills and self-care and special physical and/or mental needs.
• To be mindful of the needs of individuals and families from a wide range of racial, cultural, sexual, religious and social backgrounds and, with service users and colleagues, co-produce innovative ways of communicating and working across language and cultural barriers.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.