Senior Paediatric Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

Part time 15 hours per week

Location: Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital

Role Description:

• Are you an experienced and enthusiastic clinical psychologist looking for flexible working whilst still receiving outstanding development? We are seeking to recruit a practitioner psychologist to join our small, friendly and highly valued paediatric psychology team.
• We are looking for a highly motivated, flexible individual who is interested in developing effective, innovative, efficient services with good quality outcomes for children, young people and their families living with chronic health conditions, to improve their quality of life and well-being.

• The successful candidate will provide evidence-based psychological interventions to children and young people referred with a broad range of physical health conditions including oncology.
• We provide outpatient assessment and therapy and some inpatient input.
• This is a permanent position,  15 hours hours per week, part-time band 8a position based at the Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, with some occasional cross-site working for the Trust.

Main duties of the job

To work as an autonomous practitioner within the Paediatric Psychology Team providing a high-quality, specialist paediatric psychology service to children and young people with cancer, and their families or carers.

To provide psychological care across the cancer pathway, including diagnosis, active treatment, survivorship and, where appropriate, palliative care, in line with national NHS cancer service specifications and NICE guidance.

To work as an integral member of the Paediatric Oncology Multidisciplinary Team, supporting psychologically informed care through consultation, supervision, formulation and training.

To participate in systematic clinical governance and offer clinical supervision to trainee, junior psychologists and other staff.

To utilise research skills for audit, service development and research, with a focus on improving timely access to psychological care and reducing waiting times within paediatric oncology services.

To ensure the systematic provision of a high-quality clinical psychology service to patients referred to the Paediatric Psychology team, including those presenting with highly complex and acute psychological needs associated with cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

JOB PURPOSE

• To provide a high-quality specialist paediatric psychology service to children and young people with cancer, their families and groups, across the cancer pathway, in line with best, evidence-based practice, Trust care pathways, and national cancer service guidance. This includes offering interventions in a range of formats; including to individuals, families and groups.
• To be responsible for holding and managing a clinical caseload, including complex, high-risk and time-sensitive referrals within paediatric oncology, and to exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the planning and prioritising of own workload and the assessment, treatment and discharge of patients, within the bounds of the service operational policy.
• To use analytical and judgement skills and be responsible for taking clinical management decisions in complex clinical issues, including psychological distress related to life-threatening illness, treatment adherence difficulties, and trauma responses.
• To analyse and interpret highly complex assessment findings, feedback assessment findings to children, young people and their families, give psychological recommendations to parents/carers and other professionals, formulate and implement formal clinical recommendations and treatment interventions and complete professional reports. This will involve regularly communicating highly complex and sensitive information.
• To clinically supervise assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists and junior psychologists, psychological therapists or counsellors and other staff as appropriate.
• To professionally supervise and, when appropriate, manage assistant psychologists and trainee psychologists.
• To provide consultation, mentorship, supervision and advice about clinical psychology issues to other members of the paediatric oncology MDT and other professionals working with service users, across a range of agencies/settings as appropriate.
• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team, ensuring alignment with national cancer service specifications, NICE guidance and professional regulatory standards.
• To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team’s operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit, and to advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
• To utilise research skills to undertake service evaluation, audit and research as appropriate, with particular focus on improving timely access to psychological support, reducing waiting times, and ensuring equitable provision for children and young people with cancer and their families.