Job overview
We are recruiting a Principal Practitioner Psychologist / Psychological Therapist to provide professional leadership for the psychological practitioners working in acute in East Sussex. It is a growing psychological professions within Acute with a Band 8a, Band 7 and Assistant Psychologist. This is an excellent opportunity to develop your clinical and leadership expertise alongside a team of committed colleagues in psychology, psychological therapy and other disciplines. The service is moving to Combe Valley Hospital shortly and you will be part of an exciting time of development. You would be taking on a diverse role with opportunities to contribute to the development of psychological knowledge and skills within the MDT through teaching, and to facilitate psychologically-informed thinking, through formulation spaces and reflective practice. You will become a member of the leadership team for acute and will represent Psychological Professions within this setting. There will be close working with colleagues in urgent care and those in the multiple admissions pathway and opportunities to develop family approaches and utilise open dialogue principles. The position is open to people seeking promotion from a lower banding or those looking for a new challenge at principal level. There is a recruitment and retention incentive for this role.
Main duties of the job
You will be a key member of the acute care clinical team and must have a strong commitment to multi-disciplinary working. The role will include direct assessment and formulation of people with complex presentations and offering brief, evidence-based interventions. You will work with teams to contribute to risk assessment and care planning and you will provide consultation, and support to other professionals though formal and informal interventions such as reflective practice, debriefs and case discussions.
You will provide clinical and professional supervision to the Psychological Professions team, leading on recruitment and service developments, including training for MDT colleagues across the hospital.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The successful candidate will ensure that the multi-disciplinary teams have access to a psychological opinion, and contribute to the development of psychological thinking, understanding and interventions/ approaches within the multi-disciplinary teams. As well as offering consultation, assessments (ideally including neuropsychological assessment) and focused, short-term individual and group interventions, they will contribute to the training and clinical supervision of other staff and offer reflective practice opportunities.
The successful post holder must be flexible, confident and thrive on working within a multidisciplinary context. Experience or specialist skills in working with specific conditions, such as psychosis or complex emotional needs would be useful, as would a systemic or psychodynamic understanding of teams. Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is committed to the delivery of high quality, safe, effective, and therapeutic adult acute services based upon innovation and evidence-based practice.
Please see job description for further details.
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.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology [or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996 or outside the UK] as approved by the HCPC, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
- Professionally registered as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health Professions Council (HCPC)
Knowledge/Experience
Essential
- Significant assessed experience of working as a qualified psychologist
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client 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 severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
- Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan
- Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group.
- Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies
- Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists
- Experience' of working with open dialogue or systemically
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for Principal Psychologist / Psychological Therapist with Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in Eastbourne Hospital. It is listed as a Band 8 Psychologist role. The advertised salary is £66,582 - £77,368 Pro rata. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 27 Aug 2026.
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