Highly Specialist Clinical, Counselling or Forensic Psychologist

NHS; Rochester; On-site; GBP 69,000 - 79,000; Part time

Job summary

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust is recruiting a Highly Specialist Clinical, Counselling or Forensic Psychologist (Band 8b) to lead psychological provision across prison mental health services at HMP Rochester and HMP Cookham Wood. The role offers senior clinical leadership, development of evidence-based therapies, and collaboration with multidisciplinary teams in a specialist setting.

The post requires substantial clinical experience, professional registration, and the ability to deliver complex

Qualifications

• Registered with professional body appropriate to psychological therapy (HCPC/UKCP/BACP/BABCP).
• Considerable experience as a clinical or counselling psychologist or psychological therapist.

Responsibilities

• Lead delivery of psychology assessments, formulations, interventions and clinical consultations.
• Provide clinical leadership for the psychological therapies model and its delivery.
• Supervise psychological therapists and lived experience practitioners.
• Develop and oversee forensic psychology consultations for secondary care teams.

Skills

Clinical psychologist experience

Leadership in clinical teams

Prison mental health experience

Job description

Highly Specialist Clinical, Counselling or Forensic Psychologist

Band 8b

Main area Prison Mental Health Grade Band 8b Contract Permanent Hours 30 hours per week (Part Time - 4 days a week, days can be negotiated, 8am - 4pm) Job ref 277-8408262-COOK

Site HMP Rochester Town Rochester Salary £68,582 - £79,368 pro rata pa inc Salary period Yearly Closing 19/11/2026 23:59

Job overview

Are you an experienced Psychologist or Psychological Therapist looking for an opportunity to lead, develop and influence psychological provision within a specialist prison healthcare setting?

We are looking for a Highly Specialist Clinical, Counselling or Forensic Psychologist, or Highly Specialist Psychological Therapist to workwithin Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust's Forensic and Offender Healthcare Directorate. The post is based across HMP Rochester and HMP Cookham Wood, with close collaborative working with colleagues at other Kent prison sites.

This is a senior clinical and leadership role offering the opportunity to shape psychological therapies for people with complex emotional needs and forensic histories, while promoting psychologically informed and trauma-informed approaches across the wider service.

Important Sponsorship Information for this post: We are currently unable to offer a certificate of sponsorship for this post.

Main duties of the job

Working closely with clinical and operational leads, you will lead the delivery and development of psychological assessment and intervention within prison mental health inreach services.

You will:

• Provide and oversee highly specialist psychological assessments, formulations, interventions and clinical consultations.
• Provide clinical leadership and oversight of the psychological therapies model and its delivery.
• Supervise and support qualified and pre-qualified psychological therapists and lived experience practitioners.
• Lead psychological consultation activity and support psychologically informed approaches across the wider multidisciplinary service.
• Maintain a small clinical caseload and/or undertake psychological assessment and therapy with individuals and groups with complex needs.
• Lead on service development, clinical governance, quality improvement, audit and research.
• Help develop services that are accessible, culturally appropriate and responsive to the diverse prison population.
• Build effective relationships with healthcare colleagues, criminal justice partners, primary and secondary care services and third-sector organisations.
• Contribute to workforce planning, recruitment, appraisal, professional development and supervision within psychological therapies.

Working for our organisation

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

• We Listen
• We Care

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Task and Responsibilities To travel to clinical venues, training activities and meetings as appropriate and across the Trust when required.

To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group and follow trust policies relating to its management.

To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations of people in distress or in crisis and who may be abusive and to support others involved in such situations.

To work flexibly which may include offering some regular commitment to late clinics or Saturday working, within the overall Job Plan.

Working closely with professional and operational leads in the forensic and offender healthcare directorate, to be responsible for the delivery of a psychology assessment and intervention service in prison healthcare across Forensic and Offender Healthcare.

To liaise closely with Oxleas’ wider inreach mental health services to ensure psychological provision is available, when appropriate, to people with emotional, interpersonal and forensic / violence and aggression treatment needs across Forensic and Offender Healthcare

To support the Trust’s ambition to deliver great care, out of hospital and achieve zero delays.

Providing oversight of the clinical model and ensuring adherence to model integrity including throughout assessments and interventions.

Being the point of contact at secondary care mental health services and facilitate movement of clients between those services and others and providing support to clinicians within those services as necessary.

Developing and overseeing a system for forensic psychology consultations to the wider secondary care teams and other staff across the Forensic and Offender Healthcare directorate as appropriate.

To line manage and supervise psychological therapists, lived experience practitioners and pre-qualified psychological therapists who are directly employed by the William Morris Centre, and to liaise with the line managers of those employed in split posts.

To develop service user involvement and lived experience practitioner roles in the service.

Responsibility for quality and performance of the psychological therapies offer, overseeing completion of quarterly and annual monitoring reports as well as clinical audits.

To be responsible to the operational lead for workforce planning, including staff engagement, fair recruitment, professional appraisal, and staff continuing professional development activities.

To work closely with the administrator, psychological therapists, and operational leads to ensure there are efficient administrative systems in place to effectively manage referrals, waiting lists, and recording of clinical activity and outcomes.

To support the budget holder for the service to manage the specialty within the specified budget.

To initiate audit, policy and service development and research activities within the service to ensure the delivery of a reflexive, high quality, and financially efficient service with a sound basis in evidence-based treatment and best clinical practice.

To effectively foster and develop relationships with both internal and external partners in the criminal justice system, primary and secondary care services and non‑statutory third sector organisations.

To ensure that all services provided are acceptable and accessible to the diverse communities which make up the prison populations.

The postholder will be an authentic, compassionate, and inspiring leader who acts as a role model and champions the Trust’s vision and values.

The postholder will build a service where people feel valued, developed, and supported and where the Oxleas values are role‑modelled.

The postholder will be responsible for enabling all staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment. To support the clinical lead in contributing service development, and to attend relevant meetings and clinical forums.

To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.

To ensure the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry, in those parts of the service for which the post-holder has management or leadership responsibility.

To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a senior psychological practitioner according to professional and Trust guidelines.

To maintain own Continuing Professional Development in line with registered body and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements.

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies.

To comply with the registered body Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics/Standards of Proficiency.

To ensure that all psychological practitioners for whom the post-holder has leadership or management responsibility, maintain professional standards and continuing professional development.

Maintaining standards of practice according to the employer and any regulating bodies e.g., the UKCP, BABCP & HCPC etc.

Ensuring all aspects of confidentiality relating to both the service and individuals are maintained.

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre‑employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.

Proof of right to work documentation

Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographicID

Proof of address documentation

Non‑UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.

Address History:

5 years address history will be needed.

Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.

Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited .

• Registered with professional body or regulatory body as appropriate to psychological therapy discipline i.e., HCPC/UKCP/BACP/BABCP.
• Considerable experience of working as a clinical or counselling psychologist or psychological therapist, in relevant settings and services, e.g. secondary care adult mental health, acute or crisis services.
• Experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision.

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that welcomes and supports individuals of all abilities. Remember, if you meet the minimum criteria for this role and you have a disability, you can be guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme - Please ensure you select this on your application form. We would encourage you to be open about your needs so we can work with you to design a comfortable and accessible interview experience. Any information you provide regarding a disability or a need for adjustments will be treated in confidence and will only be shared with colleagues who are supporting this request.

If you require any adjustments to participate fully in the interview process, please let us know by adding the relevant details when scheduling your preferred interview date and time. Please feel free to contact the appointing manager to discuss your needs.

We encourage applicants to contact the hiring manager before their interview, if they have any questions about the role or the process. This is a great way to get clarity and prepare effectively for the interview.

If you have declared you are part of the armed forces community, you may be asked to provide evidence during the recruitment process. If you misrepresent this information, your offer may be withdrawn. For Armed Forces specific support, see our webpage: https://oxleas.nhs.uk/armed-forces-community/

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

If you choose to use AI or other tools to assist in writing your application, it's essential to personalise this information, particularly your supporting information section. While AI can help streamline the writing process, these tools cannot fully grasp the context or requirements of the job you’re applying for. There is also a risk that it can generate false or misleading information. AI-generated job applications can often be generic, impersonal and may not accurately reflect your qualifications, knowledge, skills, and experiences. It is crucial that you personalise your supporting statement by articulating these in your unique voice. Relying solely on AI to write your application or supporting information section is not advocated by Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust and could negatively impact your chances of success in the application process.

We monitor applications for any behaviour that could create an unfair advantage, and we check all references carefully. You are likely to be tested on your experience at interview, so be honest and make sure all the information in your application is correct.Please note that the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is prohibited during the interview process.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.