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Job summary

Main area
Clinical Psychology
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 8a
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Part time - 30 hours per week
Job ref
455-CANDI-1295
Employer
455 North London NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
North London Mental Health NHS Trust (Islington Borough)
Town
Islington
Salary
£58,698 - £65,095 Pro Rata-inclusive of Inner London HCAS
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
08/05/2025 23:59

Employer heading

455 North London NHS Foundation Trust logo

Intensive Psychosis Services 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

NHS AfC: Band 8a

Thank you for your interest for the North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT), it is an exciting time to join us and being part of our journey to improve mental health care across North London and deliver excellent services to our local people. We will achieve this through the North London Way, as we: 

  • Collaborate at every level by living our Values to create the right conditions for us all to work together.
  • Develop our new Trust culture, to help make our new Trust a great place to work and to receive great care.
  • Empower our teams to lead the planned improvements in our services, by skilling them and giving them the tools to make the changes.
  • Focus on delivering excellence at every level to improve our performance and ensure consistently high-quality care across all our services.
  • Ensure that research, Quality Improvement, and technology lead the way and are embedded in our services.
  • Take a trauma informed approach to everything we do

We proactively welcome diversity in our workforce and pride ourselves on being an inclusive employer.  We aim to recruit from our local communities and provide opportunities to all including apprenticeships, veterans, care leavers and more.

The North London Way to deliver, Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.

Our trust website is:  https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/ 

Job overview

The post-holder will lead on psychological provision within Islington Community Rehab Team and Islington Assertive Outreach Team,  providing extended assessments, formulations and psychological therapies (individual and group) to those presenting with psychosis and other severe mental health, physical health and social needs.  The post-holder will also provide consultation, reflective practice, psychological support and training to colleagues from the MDTs and partner agencies, and supervision and management as required to other psychological staff in the teams. 

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will act as a fully integrated member of the team, leading on highly specialist psychological provision to service users with psychosis and co-occuring complex needs, and their families, with the aims of  supporting recovery, promoting mental and physical wellbeing and optimise independence and social inclusion.

You would work directly with individuals, groups and families from a wide range of diverse backgrounds, providing tailored assessment, formulation, consultation and interventions for psychosis, bipolar and co-occuring psychological difficulties such as trauma. You would work closely with MDT colleagues and other agencies to provide psychologically informed care, through joint working, training, consultation, supervision and reflective practice. You would also have opportunities to work creatively and innovatively and undertake service development, service evaluation, quality improvement (QI) and research. You would be expected to practice as a senior independent clinician and work autonomously within professional guidelines and the policies and procedures of the service, supervising and managing other psychological staff in the team as required.

Please contact us to discuss any request in variation to the advertised hours, including the potential of additional sessions to create a full-time role. Please also get in touch with any other enquiries about the role: we welcome hearing from you. 

Working for our organisation

The partnership between Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) is going from strength to strength since it was originally established in 2021 forming the North London Mental Health Partnership.

Why choose to join the Partnership?

  • We believe that by working together, our two Trusts can achieve more for the residents of North Central London and our patients than we can by working apart.
  • Deliver the best care using the most up-to-date practise in supporting those with mental health illnesses.
  • Transforming and creating a positive environment for our service users, staff and visitors.
  • Creating and working together to become a great place to work for all our staff.
  • We offer flexible working, a wide range of health and wellbeing initiatives, NHS Pension and so much more.
  • Generous Annual Leave Allowance
  • NHS Discounts in a large variety of retail stores and services.
  • We have excellent internal staff network support groups..

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

 

  1. JOB SUMMARY 

 

The Islington Community Rehabilitation Team (ICRT) and Islington Assertive Outreach Team (IAOT) provide a multidisciplinary mental health service for adults with psychosis and co-occurring complex mental health, physical health and social needs. ICRT works with service users placed in mental health residential services within the borough of Islington, and the service has a strong emphasis on supporting the Rehabilitation Pathway, by facilitating successful discharge of service users to the community, maintaining community placements and supporting transitions to more independent living. IAOT works with service users who may have had difficulties engaging with services and/or multiple hospital admissions, and the team is committed to working with individual recovery goals, enhancing wellbeing and providing additional support in crisis. 

 

The post holder will lead on psychological provision within the ICRT and IAOT. They will provide high quality and highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment, working autonomously as the senior team psychologist, within professional guidelines and to the overall framework of the services’ policies and procedures.  The post holder will offer staff consultation to aid formulation, diagnosis and psychological care planning, including the management of challenging and risk behaviours, to ICRT colleagues within the Trust and to other providers elsewhere. They will provide staff team reflective space and staff support. 

The post holder will supervise / manage trainee clinical psychologists and offer supervision and line management where appropriate, to practitioner, associate and assistant  psychologists of a lower band. The post holder will utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development/quality improvement. 

 

 RELATIONSHIPS/COMMUNICATIONS 

The post holder is expected to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships with other staff members characterised by the NLFT Trust Values and trust, mutual respect, and open, honest communication. 

 

Internal Relationships  

The postholder will work closely with the following: 

Colleagues and co-workers in the ICRT and IAOT 

Colleagues working within mental health services within the Trust and third sector providers  

Colleagues working within the Local Authority. 

Community Psychosis Psychology colleagues and other psychology colleagues across the North London NHS Foundation Trust 

 

External Relationships 

The post holder will work closely with: 

University DClinPsy training courses 

Other NHS organizations 

Local Authorities 

  1. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES  

 

3.1 Financial responsibility 

The post holder will hold no financial responsibilities.  

 

3.2 Responsibility for Human Resources 

To provide professional and clinical supervision to trainee psychologists on placement and jointly line manage with the relevant DClinPsy Universities.  

 

To provide professional and clinical supervision to other psychologists of a lower grade including clinical associates in psychology and assistant psychologists where appropriate.  

 

To provide specialist consultation, training and supervision, where appropriate, to other health and social care staff working within NLFT Mental Health services. 

 

To provide teaching and training regarding the psychological needs of the target population to other members of the multi-disciplinary team. 

 

To provide informal and appropriate spaces for staff including treatment planning, case formulation and including management of challenging behaviour and risk behaviour, staff reflective practice and staff consultation  

 

3.3 Responsibility for Administration 

To screen psychology referrals from colleagues and community units 

 

To plan and organise their own workload. 

 

To ensure that all clinical and other related records are kept up to date in line with Trust policy.  

 

3.4 Responsibility for IT and Digital Systems/Services  

To advise on adaptations needed to support service users making use of remote IT and digital systems used in their care. 

 

  1. CLINICAL RESPONSIBILITIES   

 

To work as a senior clinician within the service, providing an advanced level of psychological expertise in assessment advice and treatment of highly complex service users. 

 

To provide highly specialist psychological assessments using interview, formal psychometric and other assessment methods as appropriate. 

 

 

To formulate and devise psychological treatment and management plans for referred service users with a range of problems of severity and complexity, including those with challenging behaviours. 

 

To provide specialised psychological treatment to relatives and carers when appropriate 

 

To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals, to assist in the formulation, diagnosis and treatment of service users with complex needs  

 

To carry out direct and indirect risk assessments and management plans in line with MDT care planning.  

 

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the psychological assessment and treatment in accordance with policies of the service. 

 

To provide reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service users, who may have highly complex needs and exhibit challenging behaviours. 

 

To liaise with other health and social care staff, from a range of agencies, in the care provided to service users. 

 

 

  1. OPERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES   

The postholder will be responsible for the delivery of psychological assessment and treatment, and ensure that safe, evidence based, effective, culturally competent care is delivered in a timely manner to service users. 

 

  1. POLICY / SERVICE DEVELOPMENT 

To contribute to the development of the service.  

 

To lead on the development and provision of psychology services 

 

 

  1. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 

Utilise evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual, family and group work and work with other team members. 

 

Undertake appropriate research and provide research support to other staff undertaking research. 

 

To lead on, participate in and contribute to clinical audit, QI and service evaluation with colleagues within the service, to help evaluate and improve service provision, proposing changes to working practice and procedures for their own work area as required. 

 

 

 

  1. GENERAL 

 

All staff are responsible for their continual compliance with CQC standards and outcomes. 

 

The postholder must be aware of, and work in line with, the Trust’s Safeguarding Adults and Children procedures. 

 

Receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical or counselling psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues as indicated and negotiated with line manager. 

 

Participate in an agreed programme of training and continuing professional development and maintain an active engagement with current developments in psychological practice in areas related to the post. 

 

Maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues of relevance to the service and service user group. 

 

To undertake such other duties and responsibilities, appropriate to the grade of the post, as may be agreed with Lead psychologists and other Divisional leads.  

 

 

 

  1. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 

All staff are required to be appraised by their line managers at least once a year, following the first year in service, at a personal development review meeting where progress made over the last year is discussed and agreed. Focus on the following year’s departmental and personal objectives will be identified, discussed and agreed. Where necessary, help and support will be provided and development opportunities agreed in line with service provision and knowledge and skills competency framework.   

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Doctoral level training (or equivalent) in clinical/counselling psychology
  • HCPC registration
Desirable criteria
  • Completion of further post-qualification specialist training in areas of practice relevant to the post

Skills/Abilities

Essential criteria
  • Skills in the use of a range of methods of psychological assessment (including psychometric tests), intervention and management for adults with psychosis and complex mental health problems
  • Ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, with service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
  • Well-developed skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
  • Ability to form good working relationships with colleagues in a multidisciplinary and supervisory settings.
  • Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
  • Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice.
  • Interest and ability to contribute to service development.

Experience / Knowledge

Essential criteria
  • Significant experience of psychological assessment and treatment of adults with psychosis and complex mental health problems in a range of care settings.
  • Substantial post-qualification experience working with adults with mental health difficulties and with behaviour that challenges families, carers and networks.
  • Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
  • Experience of the application of clinical / counselling psychology in different cultural contexts.
  • Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
  • Knowledge of legislation in relation to adults and mental health
  • Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the Health Care Professions Council and British Psychological Society

Personal Qualities

Essential criteria
  • Strong interest and commitment to working with people with complex mental health needs and their families.
  • Strong interest in promoting the Trust values
  • Commitment to anti-discriminatory practice

Employer certification / accreditation badges

NHS Pastoral Care Quality AwardVeteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleJob share policyAge positiveImproving working livesCare quality commission - GoodArmed Forces Covenant Gold AwardMindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.Disability confident employerCare Leaver CovenantStonewall equality policy. Equality and justice for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans people.Step into health

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Dr Lisa Dutheil
Job title
Consultant Psychologist
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
07929 655689
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