Senior Clinical /Counselling Psychologist in HIV & Sexual Health

NHS; City Of London; On-site; GBP 64,000 - 72,000; Full time

Job summary

A well-respected NHS provider is seeking a Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to join their HIV and sexual health team. The successful candidate will provide specialist psychological services and work in a dynamic environment focused on collaboration and support. This role offers flexible working arrangements and opportunities for professional development. Candidates should have substantial clinical experience and skills in assessment and intervention.

Benefits

Flexible working

Commitment to staff personal development

Access to CPD opportunities

Qualifications

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment across care settings
• Experience of working with diverse client groups
• Ability to manage complex clinical cases

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist psychological assessments and interventions
• Conduct audits and service improvement initiatives
• Consult with service users and MDT colleagues

Skills

Communication skills

Interpersonal skills

Psychological assessment

Clinical supervision

Culturally sensitive approach

Education

Doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology

Registration with HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist

Job description

Job summary

Are you a clinical or counselling psychologist interested in HIV and sexual health psychology? We are recruiting a senior role within our well‑established and respected HIV and sexual health team that provides specialist psychological services to patients and staff of Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust. This team sits within a diverse and supportive clinical health psychology service.

As part of our commitment to address inequalities in healthcare, we are particularly keen to hear from applicants with lived experience relevant to the diverse communities we work with, and from those with particular skills in understanding and promoting anti‑discrimination associated with protected characteristics.

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect you, your colleagues, and patients when working in our healthcare settings.

Main duties of the job

We are looking for a passionate, committed and pro‑active senior clinical or counselling psychologist who is able to manage the challenges of working within a demanding and rewarding environment. We prioritise collaboration within our immediate team, with the MDTs, and with the wider sexual health and HIV community. We are therefore hoping to find candidates who have the required communication and interpersonal skills that will allow them to thrive when working across these relationships to provide a meaningful service to the diverse populations we serve.

You will join a friendly, highly experienced and supportive team of clinicians, with opportunities to offer specialist psychological assessment and therapy to individuals and groups; provide supervision to assistant psychologists, trainee and qualified psychologists and other health professionals; consult with service users and our MDT colleagues; work autonomously within professional guidelines and adhering to the team’s policies and procedures; and conduct audit, service improvement initiatives and research within the field, including developing innovative ways of working to enhance patients’ access to, experience, and outcomes from HIV and sexual health psychology.

About us

CNWL is recognised locally, nationally and internationally for providing high quality, innovative healthcare. We aim to employ in line with our values; our experts are frequently called upon to contribute to national health strategy and many models of our care have been adapted for use in other countries. With us you will get …

• A Trust committed to staff personal development, with a Trust‑wide culture change and leadership programme that has staff well‑being at its core.
• An opportunity to work for one of the top 10 NHS employers.
• Flexible working.
• Variety of work.
• Access to a variety of CPD opportunities.

As a Trust we are committed to investing in our staff through a range of initiatives, both profession‑specific and organisation wide. Psychological professions staff are able to access a range of Trust‑wide CPD initiatives. We have partnered with Bespoke & Contextual Consulting to provide some of the profession‑specific CPD, alongside additional CPD sessions we commission as part of CNWL CPD programme for Psychological Professions.

Click here to find out more about working at CNWL! Psychological Professions :: CNWL Extranet

The Trust has the following active Staff Networks: BAME Staff Network, Disabled Employees Network (DEN+), Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Staff Network (LGBT+), Carers at Work Network, Lived Experience of Mental Health Issues Stigma Transformation (LEMHIST) Network and Women’s Network.

Details

Date posted: 03 November 2025

Band: 8a

Salary: £64,156 to £71,148 a year, pro‑rata

Contract: Permanent

Working pattern: Part‑time, flexible working, compressed hours

Reference

333‑J‑KC‑0909

Job location

South Kensington & Chelsea Mental Health Centre, 1 Nightingale Place, London, SW10 9NG

Job description

Please see the attached document for the full Job Description and Person Specification for more information.

Clinical responsibilities

• Provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service based upon appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self‑report measures, and semi‑structured interviews.
• Formulate and implement plans for formal psychological treatment and/or management of clients’ psychological difficulties, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework and employing evidence‑based methods.
• Implement a range of psychological interventions for individuals and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining provisional hypotheses.
• 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 person.
• Assess new referrals for service suitability.
• Provide specialist senior psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to client formulation and treatment plan.
• Undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• Communicate information concerning assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and monitor progress.
• Be professionally and legally responsible for all aspects of your work, including the management of clients in your care.
• Carry out and prioritise daily your own designated clinical caseload, working as an autonomous practitioner with regular supervision from your supervisor.
• Attend and participate in clinical and non‑clinical meetings as required.
• Be a senior member of the HIV and Sexual Health Psychology Team and support the team, as well as junior members, as appropriate.
• Hold a caseload of approximately 12 clinical contacts a week (for 0.6 WTE); including specialist psychologist assessments, psychological interventions and clinical supervision.

Leadership, Training and Supervision

• Contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice through active participation in internal and external CPD training programmes.
• Contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service by continuously developing your skills as a reflexive, reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology.
• Receive regular clinical professional supervision from a more senior psychologist, and receive management supervision from the Team Lead.
• Participate in performance objective setting / appraisal and develop a professional development plan.
• Attend mandatory training as specified in Trust and departmental policies.
• Gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to clinical/counselling psychology and/or the service as agreed with the professional psychology manager.

Note: This role requires successful candidates to be able to engage in Therapeutic Management of Violence and Aggression (TMVA) training, including the use of force techniques and the ability to attend resuscitation training and perform CPR. This is because of the high‑acuity nature of the ward/community environment and the need to ensure the safety of both patients and staff. The role is conditional upon candidates being able to engage in TMVA training and resus training during the course of their employment.

Person Specification

Training and Qualifications – Essential

• Post‑graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology or its equivalent, accredited by the British Psychological Society, or British Psychological Society Statement of Equivalence.
• Registration with HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist.

Training and Qualifications – Desirable

• Additional pre‑qualification or post‑qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training or other fields of applied psychology, including specific therapeutic models.
• Training in supervising trainee clinical psychologists and/or providing supervision.

Experience – Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in‑patient settings.
• Experience of working in a clinical health psychology setting.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups across the life course presenting problems of varying severity, maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of applying clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working with complex clinical cases, including trauma.
• Experience in independently formulating and managing acute risk situations.
• Experience of providing clinical supervision to psychologists, including assistants, trainees and qualified psychologists.

Experience – Desirable

• Experience of working in an HIV/sexual health psychology setting.
• Experience of working with high‑risk sexual behaviours.
• Experience in therapeutic group work.
• Experience in supervising other health professionals in a sexual health setting.
• Experience of working at a Senior/Highly Specialist level.
• Experience of supporting people experiencing stigma.
• Experience of working with politically and socially marginalised communities.
• Experience of teaching and training.

Knowledge and Skills – Essential

• Well‑developed skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management.
• Well‑developed skills in communicating effectively, orally and in writing, complex and clinically sensitive information to clients, families, carers and other professional colleagues within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professionals and non‑professional groups.
• Doctoral‑level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced in clinical psychology.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
• Ability to treat service users with respect and dignity at all times, adopting a culturally sensible approach which considers the needs of the whole person.
• Ability to teach and train others using a variety of complex multi‑media materials suitable for presentations.
• 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.
• Well‑developed skills and ability in formulating and managing risk.

Knowledge and Skills – Desirable

• Well‑developed knowledge of the theory and practice of delivering psychological interventions to specific groups and communities (e.g. individuals who identify as BAME, NHS staff).
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Knowledge of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled Worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see the NHS Careers website.

Employer details

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

South Kensington & Chelsea Mental Health Centre, 1 Nightingale Place, London, SW10 9NG

Employer’s website: https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/work