Practitioner Psychologist (Clinical/Forensic) 7-8a Development Post

NHS; Colchester; On-site; GBP 47,000 - 63,000; Part time

Job summary

A prominent NHS organization in Colchester is seeking a Clinical or Forensic Psychologist to provide specialist assessments and support for service development within a multi-disciplinary team. This role offers opportunities for clinical supervision and contributions to the evaluation of services. Candidates should possess a doctoral level qualification and be registered with the HCPC. Additional desirable skills include experience in training and working with diverse client groups. The position is part-time, offering a salary range of £47,810 to £62,682 per annum, pro rata.

Qualifications

• Doctoral level qualification in forensic/clinical psychology or equivalent.
• Registered with Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Experience of specialist assessment and therapy across various care settings.

Responsibilities

• Complete specialist psychological assessments and risk assessments for clients.
• Provide clinical supervision to Assistant Psychologists.
• Support psychological aspects of service development, evaluation, and research.

Skills

Doctoral level training in psychology

Specialist psychological assessment

Experience with client groups

Clinical supervision skills

Teaching and training abilities

Education

Doctoral level qualification in forensic/clinical psychology

HCPC registration

Job description

Job summary

This can be a development post for a band 7 psychologist, or an 8a post to a candidate with the right experience.

We are looking to appoint an HCPC registered Clinical or Forensic Psychologist to join the Essex Community Offending Behaviour Service (ECOS). We are a welcoming multi-disciplinary team, providing a service of excellence for service users across Essex. This post brings a diversity of opportunity, from providing specialist assessments and intervention, to supervising and supporting other members of the team.

We recognise the key role that consultation can play in developing our services and being a central part of our psychology offer. The ideal candidate for us will be someone who shares our values about offering compassionate and trauma‑informed services. The ethos of the team is one of continuous quality improvement and providing positive experiences in the process of service users being discharged from inpatient settings. We are passionate about co‑producing the content of our service offer, and we are looking for candidates who share a passion for service development and innovation. We hope that candidates will bring skills and knowledge to support audit, research, and project development within the service.

Main duties of the job

The key duties of the job will involve completion of specialist psychological assessment and risk assessment, and treatment of service users referred to the service. The postholder also will be responsible for providing highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to a service user’s formulation, treatment and risk management plans.

The key duties will also involve providing clinical supervision to Assistant Psychologists working in the service. Other important duties will involve supporting psychological aspects of service development, evaluation, research and teaching and maintaining standards in supervision and CPD. Please note that regular travel will be required as part of this role.

Please see job description and person specification for further details.

About us

Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) is an outstanding organisation with ambitions to match. We are one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of 'Outstanding' from the Care Quality Commission, and our aim is to be the leading provider of mental health and specialist learning disability services in the country.

Our family of over 4500 members of staff provide health and social care for over 400,000 people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. We also deliver a range of nationally commissioned specialist services including Tier 4 services for children and young people, perinatal services, plus medium and low secure learning disabilities services.

The care we provide makes a fantastic difference to the lives of our service users, their families and carers - everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout.

Our Trust values are:

Welcoming. Kind. Positive. Respectful. Professional.

These values are at the core of who we are, everything we do, and how we do it!

Would you like to be part of the HPFT family? Would you like work with us to ensure our service users live the fullest lives possible they can? Would you like to be supported in your career to be the best that you can be?

Details

Date posted: 19 December 2025

Pay scheme: Agenda for change

Band: Band 7

Salary: £47,810 to £62,682 a year per annum, pro rata

Contract: Permanent

Working pattern: Part-time

Reference number: 367-LD&F-9944

Job locations: Lexden Hospital, London Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3 4DB

Job responsibilities

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

• Doctoral level training as a practitioner psychologist including specific models of psychopathology, psychometrics and neuropsychology, with two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan development psychology, accredited by the BPS.
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment (including risk assessment) and treatment of clients.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups across the whole life course and presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity and maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Formal training in the supervision of other psychologists.
• Ability to teach and train others using a variety of complex multi‑media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.

Clinical

• Provide highly specialist psychological assessments (including risk assessments) of clients identified within the designated team.
• Formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients difficulties and risk based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems.
• Implement a range of highly specialist psychological interventions, adjusting and refining psychological formulations.
• Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account theoretical and therapeutic models and complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes.
• Provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to a clients formulation, diagnosis and case management plan.
• Undertake complex risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and advise other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• Communicate effectively orally and in writing, presenting complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients and other professional colleagues.

Teaching, training and supervision

• Receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a senior psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.
• Provide professional and clinical supervision to Assistant Psychologists within the service.
• Assist in the provision of clinical placements for trainee clinical psychologists, ensuring they achieve necessary skills, competencies and experience.
• Contribute to pre and post qualification teaching of professional psychology.
• Provide advice, consultation and training to staff across a range of agencies and settings, strengthening team dynamics and risk management.

Service development, policy and research

• Support psychological aspects of service development, evaluation, research and audit.
• Advising relevant health services and professional management on psychological and organisational matters.
• Manage workloads of assistants and practitioner psychologists in training within the team policies and procedures.
• Be an active participant in multi‑disciplinary forums related to service delivery.
• Provide research advice and support to staff undertaking research; manage projects and audits as required.
• Maintain high standards of professional practice and CPD, and uphold legal, policy and ethical obligations.

Person Specification

Training and Qualifications

• Doctoral level qualification in forensic/clinical psychology or equivalent.
• Registered as either a forensic/clinical/counselling psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Additional postgraduate training or qualification in a specific psychological therapy or neuropsychology (desirable).

Experience

• Experience of specialist assessment and therapy with service users across a range of care settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of service user groups with presenting problems that reflect a range of clinical severity, maintaining professionalism in highly emotive or distressing situations.
• Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision (desirable).
• Experience of working with older people in a clinical role (desirable).
• Experience of applying psychological services in different cultural contexts (desirable).

Knowledge and Skills

• Skills in using complex assessment, therapy or intervention.
• Well‑developed communication skills, orally and in writing, for complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information.
• Skills in providing consultation to professional and non‑professional groups.
• Knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex multivariate data analysis within clinical psychological services.
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies (desirable).

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.

UK Registration

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

Employer details

Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust

Lexden Hospital, London Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3 4DB