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Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Be responsible for the provision of high-quality, effectively-governed, and comprehensive clinical health psychology services delivered across the directorate by the team of qualified psychologists employed by the Trust.

• Be responsible for setting and maintaining quality standards for psychology practice throughout the directorate, including the whole range of the Clinical Governance aspects of this, delegating that responsibility as appropriate to the leads of the various specific Psychology Teams.

• Monitor current clinical health psychology service provision within the Trust for the purposes of identifying new opportunities, monitoring performance, as well as identifying and managing risks.

• Provide consultation to the Trust regarding the psychological needs of local population as these relate to the public’s general health and the development and management of physical illnesses, both acute and chronic.

• Co-ordinate the implementation of policies and guidance (e.g., NICE Guidelines) involving psychological input and lead on any planning / communication where these may impact upon other professional disciplines or Directorates.

• Provide highly developed specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation, and integration of complex data from a variety of sources.

• Make highly skilled evaluations and decisions about treatment options considering theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

• Exercise full responsibility and autonomy for the treatment of and discharge of clients whose problems are managed as a psychologically based standard care plan, ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation, and interventions, and communicating with the referral agent and others involved with the care on a regular basis.

• Provide expertise and specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

• Ensure that all members of the clinical team have access to a psychologically based framework for the understanding and care of clients of the service

• Undertake risk assessment and risk management for relevant individual clients and provide both general and specialist advice for psychological therapists and other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.

• Act as care co-ordinator, where appropriate, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the client’s needs, co-ordinating the work of others involved with care, arranging client’s care reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, family and all others involved in care, and monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.

• Communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both care, integrating the contribution of other professionals on the basis of client need.

• Provide expertise and advice to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the team.

• Provide expert consultation about the psychological care of the client group to staff and agencies outside the Directorate and Trust.

• Overcome a variety of barriers to communication when working with clients who are fearful of others, unable to articulate their problems or who think within a very different frame of reference and to establish care plans and treatment formulations in a context in which much data may be unavailable. 

• Ensure all psychological therapists within the Directorate have access to appropriate supervision, appraisal and systems for continuing professional development.

• Provide systems which ensure clinical and professional supervision to qualified and assistant psychological therapists working in the directorate.

• Take responsibility for the provision of specialist clinical placements for trainee clinical psychologists, ensuring that they acquire the necessary clinical and research skills to doctoral level where appropriate and contribute to the assessment and evaluation of those competencies.

• Provide specialist advice, consultation, and training and (where agreed locally) clinical supervision to other members of the team for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients’ functioning.

• Contribute to the pre and post qualification teaching of clinical psychologists as appropriate.

• Continue to develop expertise in the area of professional undergraduate and post-graduate training, clinical and professional supervision.

• Provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, involving frequent travel between community units.

• Organise the joint activities of the Directorate psychological therapists, including regular professional meetings.

• Lead the organisation of multi-professional training within the directorate and to contribute to that training as appropriate. 

• Represent the range of psychological therapies professions within the Directorate Senior Management Team and share responsibility for the effective operational and strategic management of the directorate’s clinical services.

• Be responsible for the psychological therapies resource within the Directorate, ensuring psychological resources are deployed in an effective and efficient manner within financial constraints.

• In collaboration with appropriate stake-holders and managers, systematically explore and attempt to secure new and innovative mechanisms for funding of psychological services within the Trust, including the development of business proposals, the creation of suitable tariff arrangements, and the tendering for contracts.

• Be responsible for the implementation and development of relevant policies within the Directorate and across the Trust.

• Be responsible for the implementation of service developments and projects within the Directorate.

• Be responsible for identifying service priorities in relation to psychological therapies within the Directorate, and determining the appropriate level of psychological therapies provision within the Directorate.

• Be responsible for ensuring psychological resources available to the Directorate are effectively managed both in terms of psychological staff and psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatments of patients.

• Exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the directorate.

• Ensure the directorate psychological therapists are provided with day-to-day management and to ensure there are clear systems for professional appraisal and the development of appropriate development plans. 

• Be responsible for the initiation and performance management of psychological research and development activity within the Directorate.

• Use theory, evidence-based literature and research to support practice-based evidence in clinical work, work with other team members and within organisational units across the Directorate.

• Devise, implement and manage audit and evaluation projects within the Service to monitor service provision and contribute to service developments, producing relevant statistics and reports as indicated.

• Undertake regular analyses of performance and clinical activity data using spread sheets and other electronic means of entering, analysing, and presenting performance information across the service.

• Lead the Directorate in the development of specialist educational and assessment resources to be used with this client group.