Principal Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

We are looking for an experienced Clinical or Forensic Psychologist to take on a pivotal leadership role within the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway – a unique collaboration between the NHS and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.

As Clinical Lead, you will shape psychologically informed services for high-risk individuals with complex personality difficulties, guiding a skilled team and influencing practice across the criminal justice services. This is a great opportunity to combine advanced clinical expertise with strategic leadership, service development, and supervision.

The OPD pathway is a psychologically-led, joint initiative between His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and NHS England for high risk offenders who experience a coexisting severe personality disorder. This post is to work as Clinical Lead for the Offender Personality Disorder CORE-OM pathway within probation and the IIRMS service. This will involve developing formulations and assisting probation staff in managing individuals who are presenting with challenging and risky behaviour due to personality difficulties. The post will involve training, supervision and consultancy for agencies working who are in contact with offenders within the Criminal Justice System and provide a psychological informed understanding of behaviour through formulation.

Main duties of the job

Working alongside a probation Operational Lead, the post-holder will be required to act as Clinical Lead for the team and provide line management and supervision to all clinical members of staff, as well as supporting the team to make clinical decision for the high risk clients.

To be responsible for the delivery of OPD services, ensuring adherence to model integrity outlined in national specifications for CORE-OM and Standard IIRMS.

To line manage and supervise qualified and unqualified healthcare staff, including qualified Psychologists, Senior Assistant Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatric Nurses.

Responsibility for quality and performance of the CORE-OM and IIRMS services, including overseeing completion of quarterly contract monitoring reports and attending commissioning meetings.

To work closely with operational managers and professional and operational leads to deliver a psychological assessment, intervention and risk management service within the services CPFT is commissioned to deliver

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 clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of highly complex psychological 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.
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s psychological problems including developmental background, long term personality adaptations, interpersonal patterns of relating, service and diagnostic issues. These plans will be based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
• To undertake clinical work to maintain HCPC registration, CPD and clinical skills, including 1-1 assessment and intervention, and/or groupwork
• To monitor and manage relevant key performance indicators for the specialty.
• To attend relevant meetings and forums to represent both psychological therapy and the service.
• To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
• To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management