Practitioner Psychologist / Senior Psychotherapist | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust; Liverpool; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider in Liverpool offers a fixed-term psychologist role within the Early Intervention for Psychosis Service. The position requires HCPC registration and involves providing CBT to clients experiencing their first episode of psychosis. Applicants will work in a supportive multidisciplinary team with opportunities for professional development in a friendly environment. This is a part-time role of 0.6wte over 9 months, with flexible working requests considered.

Qualifications

• HCPC registration is mandatory for this role.
• Desirable experience in CBT for first episode psychosis.
• Ability to travel across the patch as needed.

Responsibilities

• Monitor provision of psychological services to clients across care sectors.
• Exercise responsibility for the governance of psychological practice.
• Provide specialist psychological assessments and develop treatment plans.
• Deliver various psychological interventions and monitor client progress.
• Conduct risk assessment and communicate complex information effectively.

Skills

Experience in providing CBT to service users with first episode psychosis

Ability to work within a multidisciplinary community-based team

Education

HCPC registered practitioner psychologist and/or BABCP accredited CBT therapist

Job description

Overview

This is an exciting fixed term opportunity to be a part of the psychology team within the Early Intervention for Psychosis Service in Mersey Care, based at Baird House, Liverpool. The post is open to applicants who are qualified as HCPC registered practitioner psychologists and/or BABCP accredited CBT therapists, and a major part of the role will be the provision of CBT to service users experiencing first episode psychosis. The role is 0.6wte (22.5hrs/week) over a 9 month period to cover maternity leave within an established and highly regarded Early Intervention service working in a specialist multidisciplinary community based team to support the recovery of people who have experienced a first episode of psychosis. High quality supervision is available to support further development of your clinical skills whilst working in a friendly and caring team environment that is both supportive and rewarding. The post provides an ideal development opportunity for someone wishing to build their knowledge and skills in working with this client group. The team is based on Baird House, Liverpool, and travel around the patch will be required.

Responsibilities

• Monitor and ensure the systematic provision of highly specialised psychological services and provide a service to clients referred to the team, across all sectors of care, within an equality and human rights framework. supervise and support the other clinical members of the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment.
• Exercise delegated management responsibilities where appropriate and work autonomously within professional guidelines; exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the team.
• Utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research and propose and implement policy changes within the area served by the team.
• Develop a work plan with the post holder to be reviewed regularly depending on service needs.
• Provide specialist psychological assessments of service users based on the integration of complex data from psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect observations and semi-structured interviews.
• Formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of service users’ psychological problems using evidence-based methods.
• Deliver a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, and groups, within and across teams, and maintain provisional hypotheses.
• Evaluate and monitor progress and make highly skilled decisions about treatment options considering theoretical and therapeutic models and complex factors.
• Provide autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
• Offer specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing to service users’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plans.
• Ensure all clinical team members have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care through advice, consultation and dissemination of psychology research and theory.
• Undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and provide specialist advice to other professions on psychological risk assessment and management.
• Communicate highly complex information about assessment, formulation and treatment plans in a skilled and sensitive manner, monitoring progress during uni- and multidisciplinary care.
• Provide expertise and support to facilitate effective psychological care by all treatment team members.
• Please refer to the attached Job Description and Person Specification for a full list of duties and responsibilities.

Qualifications

• HCPC registered practitioner psychologist and/or BABCP accredited CBT therapist (as applicable to the role).
• Experience in providing CBT to service users with first episode psychosis is desirable.
• Ability to work within a multidisciplinary community-based team and travel across the patch as required.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

About Mersey Care

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and commissioned for services in the North West, North Wales and the Midlands. We offer specialist inpatient and community services to support physical and mental health, including specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK offering high secure mental health facilities. We are committed to “perfect care” — care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Note: Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Additional information

This advert closes on Friday 12 Dec 2025.