Principle Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

This is an excellent opportunity to work in a varied role across a well-established Older People’s Mental Health service which includes a Community Mental Health Team, a Home Treatment Team and a Memory Clinic which has been accredited by the Royal College of Psychiatry. We are looking to recruit an enthusiastic, highly motivated Clinical Psychologist dedicated to ensuring the delivery of high quality, safe and effective psychological assessments and interventions for older people with complex mental health needs and people with dementia.

The postholder will be able to work from both the team’s base in Upton Hospital, Slough and from home, with visits to clients’ homes in the Slough area. Travel across Berkshire for meetings and training will occasionally be required.

Experience/knowledge of working with diverse and disadvantaged populations would be helpful as would fluency in a language spoken by the local population eg  Punjabi, Urdu or Hindi. The post holder will be expected to take a lead role in the psychological assessment and treatment of patients referred to the service; providing a range of psychological therapies and conducting neuropsychological assessments as part of the Memory Clinic pathway.

Main duties of the job

• To oversee and undertake specialist clinical assessments and neuropsychological assessments

• To oversee, develop and implement a range of evidence based psychological and/or psychotherapeutic interventions for individuals, carers, families, and groups.

• To provide clinical and professional leadership and supervision to psychological professionals and other staff in the service to ensure a high quality, responsive and accessible psychological provision for service users, their carers and families.

• To manage, supervise, and support junior psychological professionals and trainees and other members of the clinical team within their area of responsibility as delegated by the Consultant Psychologist or Service Manager.

• To provide clinical and professional supervision, mentoring and coaching to other professionals as appropriate, and across the Trust where required.   To maintain up-to-date knowledge  with regards to legislative, national and local policies and issues in relation to older adults’ mental health, dementia and the psychological professions.

• To ensure that all members of the clinical team have access to a psychologically based framework through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological knowledge, research and theory.

Normal rota hours are 9-5pm, total 37.5 hours a week, and we offer a hybrid, flexible working pattern, within the needs of the service.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The “must haves” for you to be considered for this role:

• Doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology, with current HCPC registration
• Significant experience in working in an evidence-based manner with complex caseloads and with older people and their families/carers who present with a high degree of complexity.
• Significant experience in working as a qualified clinical psychologist in an older people’s mental health setting.
• Ability to work with people with complex and comorbid presentations, including cognitive impairment and/or physical health conditions.

For further information about the role, please see attached job description and person specification.

We strongly encourage you to review how you meet the criteria in the person specification and write about this point-by-point in your supporting statement for the best chance of being shortlisted.

We’re committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Our commitment to inclusion is reflected in our accreditations: Race Equality Matters Silver Trailblazer, Neurodiversity in Business Corporate Member, Disability Confident Leader, Carer Confident Level 2, and the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award. Reasonable adjustments will be provided to candidates as needed.

We have identified that this is a role where we have underrepresentation of ethnically diverse colleagues. As part of our commitment to inclusion and Unity Against Racism we offer guaranteed interviews to candidates who meet the essential criteria and identify as: Asian or Asian British, Black or Black British, Mixed and ‘Other’ Ethnic Groups.    We welcome a conversation about flexibility and any other questions you may have. Please don’t hesitate to call: Rashieda Ebrahim, Service Manager on 03002473001 or [email protected] or Dr Katy Lee, Consultant Clinical Psychologist on 0118 904 7200 who’ll be delighted to help.

Please note, if we receive a high number of applications, we may close this role earlier than the advertised closing date, so please submit your application as soon as possible.