Specialist Clinical Psychologist/Specialist Counselling Psychologist - London, United Kingdom - Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Description

This is an exciting opportunity for highly specialist Clinical Health Psychologists to take up a role in a team focussing on the psychological management of long Covid.

As Long Covid is a relatively new condition with an emerging research base, the service works innovatively, with a commitment to service evaluation and audit to continuously increase our understanding and provide the most appropriate support for patients with the condition.

The team consists of Psychologists, Cognitive Behaviour Therapists, Assistant Psychologists and Trainee Clinical Psychologists. There will be opportunities to contribute to post-Covid MDTs alongside medicalConsultants, GPs, Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists.

The post holders will develop close links with acute, community and mental health services.

It is ideally suited for someone who has experience and interest in working with a wide range of professionals to provide holistic care to patients with ongoing health conditions.

The team works both remotely and in various locations across the North-West London region, with an emphasis on cross borough working.

As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings
The aims of the post-Covid syndrome service are as follows:

~ Contribute as full members of multidisciplinary teams in the existing post-Covid services

~ Provide specialist supervision and consultation to other professionals throughout the system who are working with post-Covid syndrome

~ Develop robust outcomes and use these to advance understanding of psychological interventions within post-Covid syndrome

The NW London integrated care system has developed specialist services for individuals who have post-Covid syndrome. Post-Covid acute assessment clinics? Post-Covid community MDTs

These services are multidisciplinary and all include Psychologists as key members of the MDTs. The provision is focussed on assessment, triage, diagnostic clarification, signposting , case management and intervention (both 1:1 and group).

The psychology provision is run as a partnership between CNWL, West London NHS Trust and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, with an emphasis on cross-borough working.

However, post holder will be able to work remotely, including working from home for at least half of the week.

Key Result Areas & Performance :

To provide specialist psychological assessments of patients referred to the service, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of highly complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with patients, family members and others involved in the patients care.

~ To formulate, develop and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a patients psychological problems and adjustment, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

~ To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

~ To establish rapport and build effective working relationships with patients and all those involved in their care.

~ To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by neuropsychologically and psychologically based standard care plans.

~ To ensure that all relevant professionals have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of patients in the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

~ To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual patients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management with particular reference to deliberate self-harm.

~ To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of patients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

~ To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by staff


Teaching, Training and Supervision:
~ To receive regular clinical professional supervision from an appropriately experienced senior psychologist.

~ Assistant Psychologists) and other psychology and psychological therapies staff

~ To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical psychologists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.

~ To provide formal teaching and training sessions on psychological aspects of neurological conditions to fellow professionals, patients, relatives and carers

~ To undertake appropriate service-related research and provide research advice to other health professionals undertaking research when appropriate.

~ To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

~ To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.

~ To provide timely and accurate activity reports and data.

To manage the workloads of Assistant Psychologists and Trainee Clinical Psychologists or other members of the MDT, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures.

~ To maintain and develop effective professional working relationships with senior management within each service level agreement.

~ To ensure the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.

~ To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

~ To maintain and promulgate the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures. Clinical record keeping and incident reporting will be undertaking according to the systems and procedures of the relevant Trust.

~ To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to mental health.

Health and Wellbeing

~ The post holder will need to be familiar with and comfortable with using computer technology.

~ Due to the nature of this therapeutic work, there will be experiences of hearing difficult and at times distressing information, the post holder will be expected to consider their self-care and utilise their clinical and line managerial supervision in an effective manner.

~ Environment and working conditions the post holder will be based within an acute hospital setting but may be expected to work at other sites, if appropriate. The post holder will be expected to manage and support situations whereby there is verbal/physical aggression, they will be supported by mandatory training to address these needs alongside clinical and line managerial supervision and adherence to the Trust policies.

oPost-graduate doctoral level training in clinical / counselling psychology, or its equivalent, leading to registration as a Clinical / Counselling Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council.

oFormal training in supervision of other psychologists.

oPost-doctoral training in Clinical Neuropsychology or other directly relevant field of applied psychology.

oExperience of working with patients with physical health conditions

oDemonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist or an alternative agreed by the Chief Psychologist.

oExperience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and experience of working within a multicultural framework.

oExperience of working at a specialist clinical psychologist level in a medical or neurorehabilitation setting.
oExperience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
oExperience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care.

oDoctoral level knowledge of clinical / counselling psychology including highly developed knowledge of lifespan developmental psychology, models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology.

oSkills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.

oDoctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.

oKnowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies for patients with physical health problems.

oAbility to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust