Practitioner Psychologist - Development post Band 7 to 8a

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust; Peterborough; On-site; GBP 47,000 - 63,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional healthcare provider is seeking a Practitioner Psychologist to work at Peterborough City Hospital within Cystic Fibrosis and General Paediatrics. This role involves providing specialist psychological assessment and therapy to children and their families. The post supports career progression from Band 7 to 8a, requiring doctoral training and registration with the Health and Care Professions Council. The position offers a salary range of £47,810 to £62,682 annually, pro rata.

Qualifications

• Experience with paediatric patients in clinical settings.
• Ability to conduct complex assessments and formulate treatment plans.
• Experience working across various healthcare settings.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist psychological assessments and therapies.
• Develop plans for managing clients' mental health problems.
• Supervise assistant psychologists and provide guidance to multidisciplinary teams.

Skills

Specialist psychological assessment

Therapeutic intervention

Communication skills

Analytical skills

Supervision abilities

Education

Doctoral level training in clinical psychology

Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council

Chartered Clinical Psychologist

Job description

Practitioner Psychologist - Development post Band 7 to 8a

The closing date is 08 December 2025

We would like to offer a Band 7 to 8a psychologist development post working at Peterborough City Hospital, within Cystic Fibrosis and General Paediatrics, helping to provide parity of esteem between Physical and Mental Health.

The post is offered at band 7 and involves the transition to a band 8a psychologist, with the expectation that you will have fulfilled and evidenced the competency requirements following a transitional period (usually 12-18 months). You will be appointed a preceptor (supervising psychologist) who will support your development and hold regular reviews of progress, to ensure that you can produce a portfolio evidencing your ability to fulfil the requirements and competencies of a band 8a psychologist.

Main duties of the job

To provide 0.4 WTE Clinical Psychology post based at Peterborough City Hospital (PCH) working 0.2 into Cystic Fibrosis and 0.2 into General Paediatrics. The role provides a qualified specialist clinical psychology service to children and their families up to the age of 16 years both on an inpatient and outpatient basis.

The role delivers a service into PCH which is part of North West Anglia NHS Trust (NWAFT); however, the post is part of the larger team for Psychological Medicine for Children Young People + Families, largely based within Addenbrooke's Hospital and employed by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT).

The psychologist will provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy to children, young people and their families, at the same time as offering advice and consultation on patients' psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers. Work is autonomous within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the teams policies and procedures. Also, to utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research.

About us

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health and social care organisation dedicated to providing high-quality care with compassion to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting and empowering them to lead a fulfilling life.

Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services, not only via inpatient and primary care settings, but also within the community. These services include children's, adult and older people's mental health, forensic and specialist mental health, learning disabilities, primary care and liaison psychiatry, substance misuse, social care, research and development.

To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high-calibre candidates who share our vision and values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including people with long term conditions and members of our ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ communities.

Please be advised we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date should we receive sufficient applications.

Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all our job roles. If you apply for a role that we cannot offer sponsorship for, unfortunately, your application form will be rejected from the process.

For further information on CPFT, please visit our website at www.cpft.nhs.uk

Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities

• To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the psychological medicine service, 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 clients care.
• To develop psychological formulations of presenting problems or situations that integrate information from assessments within a coherent framework that draws upon psychological theory and evidence and which incorporates interpersonal, societal, cultural and biological factors as well as health needs and impact of health problems on the family.
• To develop and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of hospital and community based settings.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams, 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, carers or group.
• To do this in the context of health and surgical interventions.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, psychological formulation, treatment and discharge of clients and manage and maintain a caseload in line with service guidelines.
• To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other multidisciplinary professionals, both within hospital and community settings, contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
• To supervise qualified, trainee and assistant psychologists; as well as other professionals undertaking psychological work, as appropriate.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across the designated area 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 in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures.
• To act as care coordinator, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the patients psychological needs, coordinating the work of others involved with psycho-social care, taking responsibility for arranging reviews as required and communicating effectively with the patient, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi‑disciplinary interventions.

Person Specification

Education/Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS, or equivalent professional body
• Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council
• Chartered Clinical Psychologist
• Further training in systemic therapy, paediatric neuropsychology and or trauma

Experience

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation 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, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different contexts.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of working with Families
• Experience working with Children in a paediatric medical setting

Knowledge & Skills

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, psychological formulation, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration. This requires the use of highly developed analytical and judgement skills.
• Skills in individual and group work and in programme planning.
• Planning and organising skills for caseload management.
• 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 the impact of health conditions on children, adolescents and their families

Knowledge and Understanding

• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group.

Other Requirements

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, enabling formation of networks with professionals within the Trust and from other agencies to promote effective team working with clients.
• Able to contain and work with high levels of distress from clients.
• Able to contain and work with organisational stress.

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.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

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