Clinical Psychologist OUH Staff Support Service | Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Oxford; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent NHS teaching trust in Oxford seeks a Clinical Psychologist to provide a qualified and specialist psychological service for staff. The role involves conducting assessments, developing psychological interventions, and engaging in teaching and training activities. Candidates must have a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and experience in psychological assessments. The position offers the opportunity to support staff wellbeing through evidence-based practices and will uphold the Trust’s values of compassion and excellence.

Benefits

Professional development opportunities

Supportive team environment

NHS pension scheme

Qualifications

• Qualified psychologist with a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology.
• Experience in providing psychological assessment and intervention.
• Ability to manage and communicate effectively in high-stress situations.

Responsibilities

• Conduct specialized psychological assessments for staff.
• Develop interventions based on evidence and assessments.
• Provide teaching and supervision to trainees and assistants.

Skills

Highly developed manual skills

Empathic communication

Psychological assessment

Management of challenging behaviors

Education

Doctorate in Clinical Psychology

Tools

Data projection equipment

Clinical software

Job description

The post holder will play an integral part in the highly regarded Oxford University Hospitals Staff Support Service. They will provide a qualified and specialist clinical psychology service to individuals and teams who work in the trust. The post-holder will provide direct, face-to-face sessions for staff who are referred into the service. They will support waiting list management and undertake assessment and treatment work with staff members alongside clinical work with staff groups. They will engage in active audit and service development associated with the aim of providing a high quality, evidence based service with equitable access to all members of the OUH community.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest NHS teaching trusts in the country. It provides a wide range of general and specialist clinical services and is a base for medical education, training and research. The Trust comprises four hospitals – the John Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Hospital and Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Headington and the Horton General Hospital in Banbury.

Our values, standards and behaviours define the quality of clinical care we offer and the professional relationships we make with our patients, colleagues and the wider community. We call this Delivering Compassionate Excellence, and its focus is on our values of compassion, respect, learning, delivery, improvement and excellence.

These values put patients at the heart of what we do and underpin the quality healthcare we would like for ourselves or a member of our family.

Watch how we set out to deliver compassionate excellence via the OUH YouTube channel.

In 2023 NHS England launched its first sexual safety charter, and our Trust proudly signed it. We pledge zero tolerance for inappropriate sexual behaviour and commit to the ten core principles.

Oxford University Hospitals promotes a safe, respectful hiring environment.

If you want to make a difference with us, come and join our team. Together, we will uphold the highest standards of care and professionalism.

CLINICAL

• To undertake highly specialist psychological assessment and communicate a clinical opinion in order to inform and/or develop a case formulation to guide psychological intervention/consultation, based on analysis and interpretation of highly complex information from a variety of sources including clinical interview, direct observation, questionnaire measures, up-to-date literature review, psychological assessment (including assessment of mental state and psychological formulation drawing on a variety of models), psychometric assessment and with regard to other medical investigations if relevant. To give an opinion based on this in cases where professional opinion may differ, and in which a judgment has to be made about the significance of data where data may be unreliable/missing.
• As an integral part of a psychological assessment, to simultaneously exercise well-developed manual skills (i.e. accurate manipulation of a wide range of test materials, including physical materials), with which accuracy is important and it is often necessary to take account of interfering factors (such as patient distractibility, or level of comprehension).
• To develop specialised plans for formal psychological intervention, based on the individual assessment and formulation, and making use of an informed judgment of evidence of treatment efficacy and psychological principles.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, teams and groups, within and across staffing teams, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To communicate effectively, empathically and clearly with staff members and with appropriate consent line managers, Occupational Health staff and other medical professionals regarding psychological or medical matters which will regularly be highly complicated (such as explanation of multi‑faceted clinical formulations including psychological principles, medical factors, personal and family psychological factors, and the implications of these), highly emotionally charged (such as eliciting/discussing experiences of trauma or childhood abuse), and which may require managing difficulties in understanding (such as cognitive difficulties), or overcoming communication challenges with patients who are experiencing high levels of anxiety, depression or symptoms in keeping with psychosis.
• To communicate effectively and clearly with clinical colleagues regarding psychological assessments and interventions by organising and sharing the highly complex information involved in a relevant and usable form in formal written and spoken reports, as well as in day‑to‑day liaison and consultation.
• In carrying out the duties of the post, to exercise very high levels of mental concentration for prolonged periods (for example in consecutive psychotherapy sessions), regularly requiring sustained emotional concentration (for example in communicating highly distressing news, or eliciting/discussing experiences of trauma or childhood abuse), while sitting in a constrained position for extended periods.
• In carrying out the duties of the post, to cope with and manage behaviours that challenge, including verbal abuse and risk of physical aggression (for example from people experiencing high levels of distress or enduring mental health difficulties).
• To exercise standard keyboard skills, and operate electronic equipment such as data projectors and video cameras.
• To record activity and outcome data as required by Psychological Medicine Senior Management Team.

CONSULTATION

• To provide expertise and specialist psychological advice and consultation to other professionals in relation to patient assessment, diagnosis, treatment and care (for example advising Occupational Health colleagues on psychological principles and research, or acting as consultant to AHP colleagues in understanding and managing behaviours that challenge).

RESEARCH

• To take responsibility for keeping up to date with relevant clinical research.
• To identify, initiate and complete clinical research as a routine activity (including collaborating actively with MDT colleagues on research projects).
• To carry out and cooperate in audit/service‑related projects (for example evaluating the effectiveness of the staff support service).
• To use computer software in developing and operating systems for storage and analysis of data and creation of reports for colleagues in relation to audit activities and clinical research.
• To supervise research and development activities of doctoral trainee Clinical Psychologists, and Assistant Psychologists as appropriate.

TEACHING, TRAINING AND SUPERVISION

• To supervise doctoral trainee Clinical Psychologists, and be responsible for their training in all aspects of Clinical Psychology.
• To supervise Assistant Psychologists as necessary, and any other psychologists or professional colleagues associated with the post.
• To provide teaching on Clinical Psychology on the Oxford Training Course in Clinical Psychology as appropriate.
• To provide teaching and training to other professional colleagues/staff groups on psychological matters as appropriate.

ADMINISTRATIVE/ORGANISATIONAL

• To attend Occupational Health and OUH Wellbeing team meetings.
• To organise the efficient day‑to‑day running and development of the Staff Support Service in liaison with the Occupational Health team.
• To maintain accurate clinical notes and documentation for professional and legal requirements in line with Occupational Health procedures.
• To take part in service/departmental policy implementation and development (including actively working on policy implementation, as well as raising issues and proposing and discussing changes).
• To plan and organise the work of trainees and assistants as appropriate, in addition to their own caseload, research and other responsibilities and liaise as necessary with other colleagues.

This advert closes on Sunday 28 Dec 2025.