Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Integrated Care System; Runcorn; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional healthcare organization is seeking a Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist based in Runcorn. The role involves providing specialist psychological assessments and leadership across inpatient wards. Candidates must have a doctoral-level qualification in psychology and experience in assessing and treating complex mental health issues. This position offers a supportive environment for professional development, focusing on trauma-informed care and effective psychological practices.

Qualifications

• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology.
• Extensive experience as a qualified psychologist.
• Registered with the Health Professions Council.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist psychological assessments and formulations.
• Lead clinical supervision and training.
• Develop and contribute to service improvements and research.

Skills

Leadership skills

Clinical assessment

Communication skills

Psychological interventions

Risk assessment

Education

Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology

Job description

Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and enthusiastic Practitioner Psychologist looking for a new opportunity within our Adult Acute Mental Health Inpatient Speciality. The post holder will be based across the Mid Mersey inpatient footprint which includes Knowsley, St Helens, Warrington and Halton. The post will work clinically across two acute inpatient wards, one male and one female ward.

The main base will be at the Brooker centre, Runcorn, and the postholder will negotiate support in to other areas as agreed with the consultant psychologist.

We welcome applications from experienced band 8a's and current 8b's who are looking to broaden and further develop their expertise. You will have significant and relevant experience working as a qualified practitioner psychologist. You will have direct clinical responsibility for two acute inpatient wards and will provide services that meet the agreed service priorities consistent with practitioner experience. You will support the consultant psychologist in leadership, management responsibilities, supervision and strategic service design.

You will workwith the ward leadership team to drive forward the development and embedding of psychological models of care and you will work alongside teams tohold the psychological framework and trauma informed care in mind.

This is a great opportunity to join a caring, supportive and committed network of inpatient psychologists.

Main duties of the job

You will be responsible for the provision of specialist psychological assessment and formulation for severe and complex presentations across our inpatient wards.

You will provide clinical leadership through the provision of high quality clinical supervision, training and consultation within the teams. You will work with colleagues and clinical service leads to develop and contribute to service development, research projects and to maintain excellent standards of care.

The post requires an individual with initiative, excellent communication and leaderships skills and is able to work autonomously. An ability to be proactive and responsive to the needs of the ward is also essential.

To take clinical leadership responsibility in the implementation of psychological models of care for the inpatient units you are working on.

To provide services that meet the agreed service priorities consonant with practitioner experience and expertise.

The role will also involve providing supervision, training and consultation to staff whilst also providing highly specialist psychological assessments and intervention strategies. The job description recognises the need to ensure appropriate supervision and professional development as a core theme.

To exercise delegated responsibility for managing qualified and unqualified psychology staff and provide managerial support to all staff within your agreed workplan.

About us

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 are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment 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 currently 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.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Job responsibilities

To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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 formulate 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 of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, 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 or group.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

To ensure that all members of the service have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni-disciplinary and multidisciplinary care.

To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment service.

Will be required to tolerate and manage frequent verbal abuse and occasional physical aggression. Will be required to deal with the intense emotional atmosphere surrounding therapy contacts which may be highly distressing on a daily basis, and to work with frequent intense concentration for much of the clinical sessions of assessment and therapy.

To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the service, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients.

To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service.

To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of psychology as appropriate.

To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.

Person Specification

Knowledge and experience

• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of psychology
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience 50 hours supervision in a specific modality, case presentations, group supervision supported by short courses approved by the Psychology Head of Service
• Extensive experience of working as a qualified psychologist, including in a specialist area
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in patient and residential care settings 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
• Specialist experience in the area of complex trauma related mental health Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan
• Knowledge of attachment theory
• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g., personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc)
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies
• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care
• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings
• Experience of working within the specialist field of inpatient wards and their carers/ families
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework

Qualifications

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology
• Registered with the Health Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist
• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice. Post-qualification specialist training in particular psychotherapeutic approaches e.g., cognitive analytic psychotherapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, CFT, EMDR etc

Values

• Accountability
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change Orientated

Skills

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Well -developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in 23/7/25 writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups
• Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours
• Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings
• Ability to demonstrate clinical leadership with a service sector
• Ability to contain and work within organisational stress
• Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological approaches and interest in models of service delivery and ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multidisciplinary team working
• IT literate

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.