Highly Specialist Psychologist / Psychological Therapist

NHS; Croydon; On-site; GBP 64,000 - 72,000; Full time

Job summary

A national healthcare provider is seeking a highly specialist psychologist to work at HMP Wandsworth. The role involves providing psychological assessments, interventions, and promoting therapeutic relationships within a multi-disciplinary team. Candidates should possess a relevant professional qualification and experience in crisis intervention. The position offers competitive salary and monthly professional development opportunities.

Benefits

Monthly teaching sessions

Peer supervision opportunities

Access to specialist trauma training

Qualifications

• Registered with a professional body as required for psychological practice.
• Completion of at least two years of post-doctoral supervised experience.
• Experience providing supervision to junior staff or students.

Responsibilities

• Provide psychological assessments and interventions.
• Communicate sensitive information to clients effectively.
• Emphasize therapeutic relationships in a multi-disciplinary team.

Skills

Psychological assessment

Crisis intervention

Therapeutic relationships

Communication skills

Team collaboration

Education

Entry-level qualification in applied psychological therapy

Professional Doctorate or equivalent

Registered with professional body (HCPC/UKCP)

Job description

Job summary

The post is based at HMP Wandsworth where you will work with a team of psychological therapists and multi‑professional mental health colleagues to embed psychologically informed care in the prison.

Main duties of the job

You will work to the Trust's vision and values, and focus on enabling all staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment. You will promote an environment in which therapeutic relationships facilitate safety and change, by offering psychological perspectives and emotional support to officers and nursing teams and by promoting psychological thinking in operational teams. You should have interests in working with complex trauma where there is associated risk, including providing direct psychological assessments and interventions and working in multi‑disciplinary and multi‑agency contexts with mental health disciplines and with other agencies.

Benefits

Aside from the stimulating clinical work, benefits of the post include monthly teaching sessions within the psychology department, monthly peer supervision in addition to regular individual supervision, a range of interesting CPD opportunities and opportunities for future career progression within the department. The successful applicant will have access to specialist trauma training, including EMDR.

About us

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’re Kind
• We’re Fair
• We Listen
• We Care

Details

Date posted: 07 November 2025

Pay scheme: Agenda for change

Band: Band 8a

Salary: £64,156 to £71,148 a year pa inc

Contract: Fixed term

Duration: 12 months

Working pattern: Full‑time

Reference number: 277-7593794-WANDS

Job locations: HMP Wandsworth

Heathfield Road

SW18 3HU

Job responsibilities

• To undertake psychometric and neuropsychological testing as appropriate, including selecting the appropriate tests, administering and scoring the tests in accordance with the manual, and interpreting the findings in the context of all relevant information.
• To provide highly specialist psychological therapy assessments, formulations and interventions.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans, including taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans with input from clients, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.
• To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.
• To produce reports on clients, in a timely manner, that convey the key findings of psychological assessment and formulation and treatment outcome in a way that does justice to the complexity of the problems described, but that are understandable to the recipients of the reports, including clients and referrers.
• To undertake risk assessment, risk monitoring and risk management for individual clients in line with Trust and inter‑agency policies and procedures, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To work in partnership with other disciplines and to maintain links with statutory and non‑statutory agencies as appropriate.
• To ensure that all services provided are acceptable and accessible to the diverse communities served.
• Implement outcome measurement as determined by the local service.
• Attend and contribute to psychological therapies and directorate meetings and forums.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:

• 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.

You will need to provide:

• Proof of right to work documentation
• Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID
• 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.

In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants.

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en).

Person Specification

Education/Qualifications Essential

• Entry‑level qualification in applied psychological therapy/mental health/social welfare profession or equivalent and demonstrable practice in this field (ie professional Doctorate, or combination of MSc plus PG Diploma level/supervised practice/additional training) that has been accepted for the purposes of professional registration.
• Additional training beyond entry‑level qualification in a specialised area of psychological practice (through formal post‑qualification training (PG Diploma or equivalent), OR a combination of specialist short courses and/an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice‑based learning in a specialist area of clinical psychological therapy practice, assessed by a registered body and/or an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equal level to a Postgraduate Diploma or higher).
• Registered with professional body or regulatory body as appropriate to psychological therapy discipline ie HCPC/UKCP/BACP/BABCP.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the professional body.

Education Essential

• Completion of a minimum of two years full‑time (or equivalent part‑time) post‑doctoral / post‑qualification supervised experience.
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients with the full range of clinical severity under supervision.
• Experience of maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of providing supervision to pre‑qualified psychological therapies staff or students, or other professionals.

Skills/Abilities/Knowledge Essential

• Understanding psychological formulation for complex high‑risk service users.
• 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.
• Knowledge of the principles and practice of clinical governance, clinical audit and risk management.
• Ability to manage unpredictable workloads and frequent demands on concentration and attention.
• Ability to manage within available, and sometimes limited, resources.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website.

Employer details

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

HMP Wandsworth

Heathfield Road

SW18 3HU

Employer's website: http://oxleas.nhs.uk/