Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist

South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust; London; On-site; GBP 54,000 - 69,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in mental health care is seeking a Band 7/8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join the Memory Assessment Service and Behaviour and Communication Support Service in London. This role involves neuropsychological assessments, therapeutic interventions, and collaboration with multidisciplinary teams. Applicants with experience in dementia care are encouraged to apply, and flexible working options are available.

Benefits

Flexible working options

Career development opportunities

Supportive work environment

Qualifications

• Doctoral level knowledge of clinical psychology and neuropsychology.
• Skills in NICE adherent psychological interventions.
• Experience in assessing older people with mental health difficulties.

Responsibilities

• Provide neuropsychological assessments and therapeutic interventions.
• Contribute to MDT working and service improvement initiatives.
• Supervise assistant psychologists and trainee clinical psychologists.

Skills

Communication

Psychological Assessment

Intervention Skills

Consultation Skills

Team Collaboration

Neuropsychological Skills

Education

Doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology

Registration with HCPC as Clinical or Counselling Psychologist

Job description

Site Springfield University Hospital Town London Salary £54,320 - £68,676 pro rata per annum inclusive of inner London HCAS Salary period Yearly Closing 15/06/2025 23:59

South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We provide a full range of local mental health services to the Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth London boroughs, as well as specialist forensic mental health services, including specialised services such as national deaf adults and CAMHS inpatients and OCD.

We are committed to providing high quality integrated health and social care for local people with mental health problems in South West London and more specialist mental health services for people throughout the UK. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ however we aim to be ‘outstanding’.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values; being consistent, compassionate, collaborative, respectful and open is at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is "making life better together".

When you join us, you’ll be part of something special – an innovative and rapidly growing organisation that is helping to redefine the Mental Health, education and social care landscape in the UK.

As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

We are seeking an enthusiastic Band 7 (preceptorship) / 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join our well established multidisciplinary Memory Assessment Service (MAS) and Behaviour and Communication Support Service (BACSS) withinWandsworth Older People’s Mental Health Service. We particularly invite applications from psychologists with experience of working with distressed behaviour in dementia and/or neuropsychological assessment with older people. We welcome applications from final year Trainee Psychologists eligible to join the HCPC on qualifying.

Psychology is highly valued within our Older People’s services and you will be well supported within the Trust older people’s psychology team, where CPD, career development and staff support are encouraged and supported and there is dedicated CPD time for preceptorship posts. We have specialist pathway psychologist leads in Neuropsychological Assessment, Care Home Liaison/ Distressed Behaviour in Dementia, and Therapies, and you will receive regular individual supervision and support from senior psychologists in the service as well as opportunities to attend regular peer supervision and CPD. Our psychologists practice a range of therapeutic models and we have staff working towards the requirements of the Specialist Register of Clinical Neuropsychologists. The service has strong links with the University of Surrey Clinical Psychology Doctoral Training Program, providing regular placements and contributing to program teaching

Main duties of the job

Within MAS you will work directly with service users and carers providing neuropsychological assessments of dementia and therapeutic work. Within BACSS you will provide psychological and biopsychosocial assessment, interventions and consultation to nursing and residential homes for people experiencing behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia. Both roles involve MDT working including providing consultation, complex case discussions, and supporting staff training. You will be encouraged to contribute towards service improvement, either by supporting local Quality Improvement Initiatives or larger Trust wide projects. You will supervise the assistant psychologist within BACSS and at 8a will also supervise a Trainee Clinical Psychologist.

The post is funded as 8a, however we are happy to consider newly or recently qualified applicants who may not yet meet 8a criteria. An applicant appointed at band 7 will be supported through a preceptorship model including a professional and clinical development plan and support for CPD to acquire the knowledge, skills and experience that meet the person specifications for the post at band 8a. Where these conditions are met the post holder will be expected to progress to band 8a subject to successful interview.

We are happy to consider applicants interested in working part-time or as a job share and offer agile and flexible working opportunities as part of our new ways of working, which we are happy to discuss at interview stage.

Working for our organisation

We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.

We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ - we aspire to be ‘outstanding’.

We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.

We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.

Come and join our inclusive teams and help our patients on their recovery journey.

Location:

Wandsworth Older Peoples’ Services are based at Springfield Village, Tooting. Our largest, 19-ward site is in Springfield Village, created following our £150m investment into two new world class mental health facilities. A 32-acre public park, shops and cafes are now opening. Springfield is close to shops, cafes and Tooting Bec on the Northern Line plus Earlsfield and Tooting rail stations and bus routes.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical:

• To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members, and others involved in the client’s care.
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• 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 exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
• To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.
• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
• To work with older people in community care homes and day centres who are displaying behavioural and psychological symptoms as a result of their mental health.
• To undertake specific assessment of individual service users with challenging behaviour and to contribute to the formulation and implementation of a multi-disciplinary care plan.
• To provide therapeutic and educational guidance to enable clinical teams to provide appropriate high quality care for older people displaying challenging behaviours

Person specification

Knowledge and Skills

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
• Ability to demonstrate excellence in NICE adherent psychological interventions especially CBT for psychological problems.
• Doctoral level knowledge of neuropsychological assessment.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Knowledge of assessment and interventions for people with behavioural and psychological symptoms in dementia.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.

Training and Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS - including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology – or alternative training outside of the UK that is recognised by the Health & Care Professions Council leading to registration in the UK as a Clinical or Counselling Psychologist.
• Registration with the HCPC under the appropriate domain specific title
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the HCPC
• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists

Experience

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course, presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems.
• Experience of assessing and treating older people with mental health difficulties and/or dementia across a variety of care settings.
• Experience of working with behavioural and psychological symptoms in dementia.
• EExperience of delivering NICE adherent psychological interventions especially CBT for psychological problems
• Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist over a minimum of 18 months, or an alternative agreed by the Trust Head of Psychology and Psychotherapies
• Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist over a minimum of 18 months, or an alternative agreed by the Trust Head of Psychology and Psychotherapies
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience in care home liaison work

At South West London St Georges Mental Health Trust we are committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Committed Employer, and welcome applications from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We are Members of Stonewall Diversity Champions and Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion.

As part of the Trust's commitment to Equalities and Diversity, the Trust supports the establishment of Staff Networks groups to promote diversity in the workplace:

• BME (Evolve) Staff Network
• DiverseAbility
• Mental Health Staff Forum
• Women's Staff Network
• LGBTQIA+

We are committed to supporting the Armed Forces Community and has signed the Armed Forces Covenant.

We provide reasonable adjustments to the interview process for any candidates with a disability.

Please note:

• That the closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received
• That once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3 rd party e-recruitment system
• That should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not successful
• That priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees
• That should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process
• That your employment is offered subject to successful completion of a Probationary Period depending on your Band (except medical roles)
• That we are a smoke-free Trust

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.