Clinical/Counselling Psychologist | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust; St Helens; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 58,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare trust in St Helens is seeking a dedicated Applied Psychologist to deliver psychological therapies and assessments in a supportive multidisciplinary team. This role provides an excellent opportunity to develop therapy skills with complex cases, offering further training in various therapeutic approaches. The successful candidate will supervise others and contribute to service design while maintaining a commitment to 'perfect care'.

Qualifications

• Creative and compassionate approach to clients.
• Experience with complex client presentations.
• Ability to co-facilitate therapy groups.

Responsibilities

• Provide 1:1 psychological assessment and intervention.
• Supervise trainee psychologists and team members.
• Liaise with professionals involved in client care.
• Participate in multidisciplinary team meetings.
• Contribute to the design and development of services.

Skills

Psychological assessment

Therapeutic intervention

Supervision

Team collaboration

Education

Doctorate in Psychology (clinical or counselling)

Job description

Are you a creative, compassionate and dedicated Psychologist looking to develop your psychological therapy skills within a supportive team? If so then read on.

A fantastic opportunity has arisen for an Applied Psychologist (clinical or counselling) or Psychological Therapist to join St Helens Step 4 Psychology Service. Depending on qualifications and experience the post could be offered at AFC Band 7 (as a preceptorship role) or Band 8a.

The team sits within the multidisciplinary Recovery team and comprises Clinical Psychologists, Counselling Psychologists, Cognitive Behavioural Therapists, EMDR therapists, specialist nurse practitioners and assistant psychologists. We also regularly offer placements to trainee clinical psychologists.

This is predominantly a clinical role and an excellent opportunity to develop psychological therapy skills. It is a secondary care service so clients presentations are complex often requiring bespoke and longer term approaches.

Training and Development

Further training to enhance clinical skills is supported and encouraged, over the past four years team members have trained in the following:

• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
• Mentalisation Based Therapy (MBT)
• Schema therapy
• Compassion Focussed Therapy (CFT)
• Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)
• Psychodynamic Interpersonal Therapy (PIT)
• Behavioural Family therapy (BFT)
• Structured Psychological Support (SPS)

Key Responsibilities

• Providing 1:1 psychological assessment, formulation and intervention to clients referred into the service.
• Supervision of other staff members, trainee clinical psychologists or other members of the psychological therapies team.
• Co-facilitating therapy groups or contributing to service design and development.
• Liaising with other professionals, teams, or agencies involved in client care, and contributing to a psychologically based framework for understanding clients across settings.
• Participating in multidisciplinary team (MDT) working and attending weekly forums for practitioner support.

Our service users have complex presentations and difficulties and often liaison with other professionals. The successful candidate would be expected to contribute to a psychologically based framework for understanding their clients across settings.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands. We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

The psychological therapies service sits in the multidisciplinary St Helens Recovery team so MDT working is also a key requirement of this role. The psychological therapies team is a supportive team. As well as regular supervision there are numerous weekly forums where practitioners can obtain further support.

Please see attached Job Description and Person Specification for further information

This advert closes on Wednesday 3 Dec 2025