Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

West London NHS Trust; London; On-site; GBP 67,000 - 79,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity awaits a dedicated Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join a pioneering team in Ealing. This role encompasses providing psychological assessments and treatments for adults facing a variety of mental health challenges, including complex trauma and psychosis. The position not only involves direct patient care but also leadership responsibilities, ensuring a psychologically informed approach across multidisciplinary teams. With a commitment to professional development and a supportive environment, this role offers a chance to make a significant impact in the community while advancing your career in a trusted healthcare provider known for its diverse services and excellent training programs.

Benefits

Comprehensive CPD Programme

Training in EMDR and DBT

Support for professional development

Access to reflective practice sessions

Qualifications

• Qualified psychologist with experience in community settings and complex needs.
• Advanced knowledge of clinical psychology and treatment of severe mental health issues.

Responsibilities

• Lead the psychology team and oversee treatment pathways for service users.
• Provide psychological assessments and treatment for complex mental health disorders.

Skills

Psychological Assessments

Clinical Supervision

Evidence-based Treatments

Communication Skills

Team Collaboration

Education

Good honours degree in Psychology

Post-graduate doctorate in clinical or counselling psychology

Professional Registration with HCPC

Tools

Psychological Testing Software

Database Software

Word Processing Software

Job description

Use the job search to find and apply for roles using keywords or look at the roles listed below.

Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Band 8b

Main area: Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist Grade Band 8b Contract: Permanent Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref: 222-LS-MINT-286-A

Site: MINT Ealing Acton Town London Salary: £67,950 - £78,028 per annum inclusive of 15% HCAS Salary period: Yearly Closing: 17/02/2025 23:59

West London NHS Trust provides a full range of mental health, community and physical healthcare services for children, adults and older people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow.

Job overview

Exciting new opportunity for Clinical/Counselling Psychologists in the MINT teams in Ealing, West London NHS Trust

We are seeking a Band 8B Clinical or Counselling psychologist to work in one of our new Mental Health Integrated Network (MINT) teams. These teams are innovative and cover both primary and secondary care adult mental health provision. The post involves providing psychological assessments and treatment to adults with a wide range of problems, including Personality Difficulties, Complex Trauma, Psychosis and other mood disorders. It also involves broader liaison and joint working with services including IAPT and external agencies to deliver on supporting psychological needs in a variety of ways.

The post-holder will hold a lead role in ensuring that all members of multidisciplinary teams have access to a psychologically informed way of thinking and formulation about different client groups. This includes having a lead role in ensuring the delivery of psychological treatments alongside providing consultation, facilitating joint work and contributing to the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

Furthermore, they will offer clinical supervision and line management to less senior members of the psychology team.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will have oversight of the psychology team, which works closely with three MDTs in Ealing. S/he would be expected to contribute to the development and delivery of treatment pathways within these teams, and to support the teams more generally in formulating and caring for service users.

The psychology team aims to offer a range of evidence-based treatments for the aforementioned disorders, including EMDR, DBT, and CBT for psychosis. Training in all these therapies is made available, delivered by expert external providers, and supported with the necessary specialist supervision.

This post is a leadership post within the wider MINT psychology team, covering the three MINT teams in Ealing. The psychology team includes clinical and counselling psychologists, CBT therapists, and clinical associate psychologists, as well as students and trainees. We work together in delivering evidence-based group therapies and fostering space for reflective practice. You will also develop close working relationships with other local psychologists in related services.

As already mentioned, there is an excellent CPD programme. Training is available in therapies such as EMDR and DBT, which can lead to accreditation in these therapies. We can also support training in other models to support your personal and professional development where it will enhance the service we are able to offer to our service users.

Working for our organisation

West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse healthcare providers in the UK, delivering a range of mental health and physical healthcare and community services. The Trust runs Broadmoor Hospital, one of three high secure hospitals in the country, with an international reputation.

Our high secure services care for patients from South of England and we provide low and medium secure services across eight London boroughs. The Trust also provides mental and physical healthcare in three London boroughs (Ealing, Hounslow and Hammersmith & Fulham). We employ over 5,000 staff, of whom 59% are BME. Our turnover for 2024-25 is over £500m.

The Trust is rated as ‘Good’ overall by the Care Quality Commission. Forensic services are rated as ‘Outstanding’.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Candidate Pack provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. Please view as attached.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Good honours degree (2:1 minimum) in Psychology. Eligibility for graduate membership of BPS.
• Post-graduate doctorate in clinical or counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996 or those in lateral transfer) as accredited by the BPS.
• Professional Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council.
• Training in clinical supervision for Doctoral, and equivalent, training.
• Advanced keyboard skills.
• Other related academic qualifications.
• Evidence of post-doctoral training in systemic therapy/ CBTp/DBT/ CAT/ MBT/Schema Therapy/CBT.

Experience

• Significant experience working as a qualified (specialist) psychologist, including post qualification experience as a qualified psychologist within a community setting with those who present with complex needs.
• Highly developed specialist knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of psychology applied to clinical practice, particularly in respect of adults with severe and enduring mental health needs (including complex emotional needs and a trauma history).
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of having facilitated/co-facilitated psychological therapy groups.
• Experience of working clinically with both male and female service users.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of having facilitated/co-facilitated psychological therapy with families.

Knowledge and Skills

• Highly developed specialist knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of psychology applied to clinical practice, particularly in respect of adults with severe and enduring difficulties, psychosis, trauma and complex needs.
• Advanced specialist knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of psychology applied to clinical practice.
• Able to provide and receive highly complex, highly sensitive or highly contentious information, where there are significant barriers to acceptance which need to be overcome using the highest level of interpersonal and communication skills such as would be required when communicating in a hostile, antagonistic or highly emotive atmosphere.
• Able to make judgements involving highly complex facts or situations, which require the evaluation of a range of options (e.g. the assessment of specialist clinical conditions and the determination of treatment options), where expert opinions may differ.
• Able to plan, prioritise and organise own workload, assessments, formulating and treatment, involving other staff, and other aspects of the work such as research activity.
• Psychomotor skills necessary to administer complex psychological tests and video equipment.
• Able to use database, word processing and test administration/scoring software.
• Post-graduate level knowledge of research design and methodology.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.
• Specialist theoretical and practical knowledge of the assessment and treatment of complex presentations.
• Specialist theoretical and practical knowledge of the assessment and treatment of a wide range of mental health conditions.
• Specialist theoretical and practical knowledge of assessment and intervention with families.

Other Requirements

• Knowledge of the professional code of conduct of the BPS.
• Must be capable of being guided by precedent, clearly defined policies, procedures and codes of conduct.
• Able to reflect on own professional practice through the clinical supervision process.
• Willing to participate actively in CPD in line with BPS guidelines.
• 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.
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Record of having published in either peer-reviewed or academic or professional journals and/or books.

As an employee of West London NHS Trust, you have a responsibility to maintain a sound understanding of, and a commitment to uphold the National Health Service values and principles set out in the NHS Constitution.

We reserve the right to close adverts prior to the closing date stated should we receive a high volume of applications.

By applying for this post you are agreeing to West London NHS Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are offered a job, you will be required to undergo a pre-employment checks which can take between 4-8 weeks. After which your information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system (ESR).

Please ensure you include email addresses for your referees which MUST be at supervisory or managerial capacity covering the last 3 years of employment to date to avoid delay in the recruitment process.

West London NHS Trust is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

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.

At West London NHS Trust, we want you to support you to build a career you can be proud of and this starts before your first day with us. Our people live our values every day as they deliver, manage and work to improve our services to patients, carers, families and other professionals.

We’re committed to making our recruitment process clear and efficient. It’s in everyone’s interest that we get the very best people on board as soon as we can.