Principal Clinical Psychologist

Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust; Lancaster; On-site; GBP 62,000 - 73,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional mental health service provider in Lancaster is seeking a Principal Clinical Psychologist. This role involves providing high-quality clinical psychology service, supervising team members, and ensuring psychological practice governance. Ideal candidates should have a doctoral level training in clinical psychology and skills in complex assessment methods. The position offers a salary between £62,215 and £72,293 per annum, with opportunities for flexible working.

Benefits

Flexible working options

Supportive team environment

Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology or equivalent.
• Accredited in two or more distinct psychological therapies.
• Skills in complex psychological assessment.

Responsibilities

• Provide high quality clinical psychology services.
• Supervise psychological assessment and therapy by the team.
• Ensure governance of psychological practice within the team.

Skills

Complex psychological assessment

Effective communication

Team leadership

Education

Doctoral level training in clinical psychology

Accreditation in two or more distinct psychological therapies

Job description

Go back Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust

Principal Clinical Psychologist

The closing date is 19 October 2025

Are you looking for an opportunity to work with children and young people, and their families?

Do you have a passion and enthusiasm for supporting young people to improve their mental health and reach their potential? Are you thinking about where in the country you would like to work? Referral rates to CAMHS are rising. There is much work to be done and we need clinicians who want to make a positive difference to the lives of young people.

We are looking to recruit a Band 8b Clinical Psychologist to Lancaster and Morecambe CAMHS / Children\'s Psychological Service (CPS). We are a part of Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust.

We are looking for an enthusiastic, dynamic and creative Principal Clinical Psychologist to join our established Psychological Therapies Team (including Clinical Psychologists, CBT Therapist, Family Therapist and Trainee/Assistant Psychologists) which works within the highly experienced, supportive and forward thinking CAMHS/CPS MDT, inclusive of Psychiatrists, CAMHS Practitioners, ADHD Practitioners, Primary Mental Health Workers and, Children and Young Wellbeing Practitioners.

Main duties of the job

• To be responsible for ensuring the systematic provision of a high quality specialist clinical psychology service to clients within a designated area of responsibility.
• To supervise and support psychological assessment and therapy provided by other psychologists and other clinical members of the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment.
• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the designated area of responsibility.
• To utilise research skills, audit, policy and service development and research and implement policy changes within the areas served by the team/service in agreement with the relevant manager.

About us

Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust provides a range of services including secondary mental health care across this area. Specialist provision comprises inpatient child and adolescent mental health services, perinatal mental health and forensic services including low and medium secure care.

The Trust also provides a range of physical health and well-being services in the community alongside a range of partners in the Lancashire, Cumbria and Sefton area.

Lancashire & South Cumbria Foundation Trust encourages flexible working, we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as; term time, part time, compressed hours, flexi-time and career breaks. We encourage applicants to state clearly on their application forms this request and discuss these options at interview.

For more information please visit our website via Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS FT.

Job responsibilities

Please see attached the job description and person specification for more information about this role.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology or equivalent for those who trained prior to 1996, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology
• two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.

Knowledge

• 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 writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• Implications in relation to the client group and mental health. the clinical fields of psychology.

Experience

• Significant experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist.
• 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 exercising full clinical responsibility for client\'s psychological care and treatment both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of multidisciplinary care plan. Experience of teaching, training and supervising.

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.

Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust

£62,215 to £72,293 a year Per annum Pro rata