Principal Psychologist

NHS; Stoke-on-Trent; On-site; GBP 64,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

A National Health Service in the UK is seeking a Principal Psychologist for its Adult Critical Care Unit. This permanent role involves providing psychological services to critical care patients, leading a team, and engaging in research. Candidates must possess a Doctorate in clinical psychology and have experience in this area. The position offers £64,455 to £74,896 annually, reflecting the importance of mental health in critical care.

Benefits

Flexible working options

Wellness opportunities

Qualifications

• HCPC registration required.
• Supervision training is essential.
• Experience in working with diverse clinical settings.

Responsibilities

• Provide psychological support to critical care patients and their families.
• Contribute to multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams.
• Undertake formal research as a major role.

Skills

Clinical assessment

Psychological interventions

Team collaboration

Education

Doctorate in clinical psychology

Post-doctoral training in specialized areas

Job description

Principal Psychologist

Closing date: 20 November 2025

Position: Principal Psychologist 8b 0.4 WTE (15 hours) Permanent

We are pleased to advertise a permanent Principal Practitioner post in our Adult Critical Care Unit (ACCU) at the UHNM. The ACCU has expanded its multidisciplinary rehabilitation across the care pathway, providing psychology for patients, staff wellbeing, and support for families/carers.

This has led to the development of our specialist Critical Care Psychology Team, including a Consultant Psychologist, Principal Psychologists, Senior Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Psychologists.

We seek a highly skilled and motivated Principal Psychologist to support the innovation, development, and delivery of psychological services across the care pathway.

Job responsibilities

The post holder will be responsible, with support of the strategic and clinical lead and Consultant Psychologist within critical care (NSCHT), for providing a highly skilled psychology service in the specialist areas of critical care at UHNM. This will include:

• Follow up on the wards at UHNM
• Out-patient clinic for community follow-up
• Family/ carer support
• To provide expertise in highly specialist clinical area of intensive care and deliver high quality psychological assessments, formulations and interventions for patients and families within the critical care services of UHNM.
• To contribute to the design, planning, delivery and evaluation of a psychological service for patients on the ACCU pathway, from critical care in-patients, ward follow-up at UHNM, and prospective out-patient clinic.
• To contribute to the delivery of a 7 day psychological service for critical care patients.
• To deliver direct/indirect psychological support for family/carers of ACCU patients.
• To hold clinical and managerial responsibility for junior psychologists in the delivery of highly specialist psychological services.
• To provide clinical leadership to psychology staff to provide interventions for complex and contentious comorbid physical and mental health conditions in ITU, including challenging behaviours and possible risk of physical aggression.
• To provide clinical supervision and training to junior colleagues within the designated psychology service and to staff external to the team.
• To undertake formal research as a major part of the job and act as field supervisor to doctorate trainees.
• To engage in continual service improvement within own area.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will join a highly specialist and motivated multi-disciplinary rehabilitation team at the UHNM Adult Critical Care Unit (ACCU), in partnership with North Staffordshire Combined Mental Health Trust (NSCHCT).

An emphasis will be on the clinical screening, triaging, assessment and treatment of patients at high risk of psychological distress and difficulties as a consequence of the incident that brought them into ITU services and their experiences whilst receiving these services. This includes patients who may be experiencing mental health difficulties for the first time and those with a pre‑existing history of such difficulties. There will also be a need to work with patients’ families experiencing PTSD, depression and anxiety as a consequence of their experiences. The post holder will also provide support, consultation and advice to staff.

The post holder will have expertise in working psychologically within physical health care settings, as well as within a wider physical health psychological context. There will be a leadership component, with experience required in clinical assessment, interventions and signposting, as well as managing caseloads, risk assessment/management and individual/group psychology programmes, within a timely and professional manner.

About us

As a Trust we remain bold and ambitious with plans for both service and system collaborative transformation over the coming years to improve the health and wellbeing of our local people through high quality care.

We pride ourselves on ensuring our team has their wellbeing put first and as such provide a range of wellness opportunities including flexible working.

We are committed to the Greener NHS national ambition to becoming the world’s first ‘carbon net zero’ national health system by 2045. As part of this, sustainability is embedded in our strategy as one of our four key enablers. In order to deliver on this commitment, we recognise that we need a workforce that is as passionate as we are about achieving these goals, for the benefit of our service users, workforce, local communities and the planet alike.

The Trust is committed to ensuring that a diverse workforce is representative and inclusive at all levels. We would very much welcome applications from all under‑represented groups including women, people with disabilities, people from global majority backgrounds, and those from the lesbian, gay, bi and trans communities.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Doctorate in clinical psychology
• Post‑doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice
• HCPC registration
• Supervision training

Experience

• Working as a qualified applied psychologist within the designated service including a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and a range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings.
• Worked previously in Critical Care, inpatient acute medical setting, inpatient hospital setting.

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.

£64,455 to £74,896 a year (pro rata)