Principal Practitioner Psychologist

Job overview

We are delighted to announce an exciting opportunity for a  permanent Principal Practitioner Psychologist (Clinical, Counselling, Forensic)  to join our Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale (HMR) Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team (CRHTT), based at Birch Hill Hospital.

This is a 0.8WTE Band 8b position, offering a key leadership role within our dynamic and supportive service. The vacancy forms part of significant new investment in the crisis pathway, supporting the transformation of our existing Home Treatment Teams into  CRHTTs. The successful candidate will join a Highly Specialist Psychologist as part of expanding psychology provision.

Our CRHTT provides intensive home‑based assessment, intervention, and support as an alternative to hospital admission. The team works with adults experiencing acute mental health crisis, often presenting with high levels of distress, risk, and complexity. The service plays a crucial role in admission avoidance, early intervention, and supporting safe discharge from inpatient care.

The successful candidates will join committed and experienced MDTs, working closely with medical, nursing, OT, and support staff to deliver psychologically informed crisis care.

This is an excellent opportunity to contribute to a growing and evolving service, influence the development of psychologically informed crisis pathways, and make a meaningful difference to service users and their families during some of the most challenging moments in their lives.

Main duties of the job

As outlined in the job description, the main duties of the job include:

• To provide consultation and formulation to colleagues within the CRHTT.
• To provide a qualified specialist psychology service for people referred to the CRHTT care pathway.
• To provide specialist assessment, formulation and interventions for a clinical caseload.
• To provide psychological leadership to the CRHTT care pathway and work systemically across services (e.g., acute services and secondary care) to develop a psychological understanding and context for other professionals, service users and carers.
• To lead the psychological CRHTT provision within borough and support the Trust wide acute pathway when needed, to help ensure equity in provision and service.
• The post holder will propose and implement evidence-based practice, utilising research skills for audit and service developments.
• The post holder will enhance psychological understanding and skill set through the delivery of training, supervision and reflective practice. This will include within the current CRHTT team but also making links with local universities and providing placements for trainee Psychologists.
• To be an integral part of local and national initiatives to improve care quality. For example (but not limited to) inpatient transformation, community transformation care in the community and reducing admissions.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For a more detailed overview of the roles job description and main responsibilities, please see the attached job description and personal specification.