Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist/Psychological Therapist

Job overview

We are recruiting an experienced and innovative Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to provide clinical and professional leadership within the Rough Sleepers Mental Health Project (RAMHP). Working alongside the team manager, the post holder will lead the development and delivery of psychological interventions, offer highly specialist clinical input, and provide consultation, supervision, and reflective practice to the wider team.

RAMHP is an Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust service supporting people sleeping rough across Bromley, Bexley, and Greenwich. The project works closely with non-profit organisations and local services to strengthen pathways, fill gaps, and ensure homeless individuals are rapidly identified, assessed, supported, and directed towards sustained recovery.

The service enhances existing provision as part of a broader homeless wellbeing pathway, offering access to Oxleas’ training, supervision, and Quality Improvement resources. Funded through NHS England’s Long-Term Plan, RAMHP aligns with the Greater London Authority’s homelessness priorities, including reducing the number of new rough sleepers, preventing repeat homelessness, supporting non-UK nationals, improving partnership working, ensuring better outcomes after hospital or prison discharge, meeting physical and mental health needs, increasing access to mental health services, expanding appropriate accommodation options, and strengthening data collection and use.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will provide skilled and experienced leadership to Oxleas RAMHP, overseeing the provision and development of the psychological interventions and wider psychosocial and trauma-informed practice in the team.  The post will ensure the systematic provision of a high-quality specialist psychology service to service users of RAMHP and their support networks (including families and carers).

To supervise and support the psychological assessment and intervention provided by other clinical members of the service who provide psychologically-based care and treatment.

To provide consultation and reflective practice and incident debriefs to the service and to facilitate team working, psychologically informed practice, trauma-informed care and appropriate treatment pathways to optimise service user journey and experience across service transitions.

The post will also involve close organisational liaison with the wider Oxleas mental health system and third sector partners.

The post holder will be expected to work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the team.

To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research.

To propose and implement policy changes within the area served by the teams. To contribute to the overall management of the service.

See attached Job Description for a full list of duties.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To line manage and supervise psychological therapists, lived experience practitioners and pre-qualified psychological therapists who are directly employed by the London Pathways Partnership, and to liaise with the line managers of those employed in split posts.
• To develop service user involvement and lived experience practitioner roles in the service.
• To interpret policies and guidance for application in the London Pathways Partnership and be responsible for policy implementation.
• Responsibility for quality and performance of the London Pathways Partnership’s Workforce Development Group, overseeing completion of quarterly and annual monitoring reports as well as clinical audits, where relevant to the role.
• To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the London Pathways Partnership’s Workforce Development Group.
• To be responsible to the operational lead for workforce planning, including staff engagement, fair recruitment, professional appraisal and staff continuing professional development activities.
• To work closely with the administrator, psychological therapists and operational leads to ensure there are efficient administrative systems in place to effectively manage referrals, waiting lists, and recording of clinical activity and outcomes.
• To support the budget holder for the service to manage the specialty within the specified budget.
• To initiate audit, policy and service development and research activities within the service to ensure the delivery of a reflexive, high quality and financially efficient service with a sound basis in evidence-based treatment and best clinical practice.
• To interpret policies and guidance for application in the service and be responsible for policy development and implementation
• To initiate, implement and ensure appropriate service developments to improve the quality and delivery of services in the service and in partner services.
• To ensure the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities.
• To participate in, or lead when appropriate, Trust and Directorate strategic development and implementation of new initiatives (e.g. national guidelines), through membership of committees and/or working parties.
• In partnership with professional and operational leads, to be responsible for service development and expansion, following best practice policy and guidance and local organisational priorities and to lead on service innovation and evaluation.
• To be responsible for setting and implementing clinical governance standards within the service and ensure that these are maintained and improved.
• To take a lead role in ensuring that services to clients are of a high quality and are managed efficiently, according to the overall requirements of the Trust, NHS and government guidance and standards.