Principal Psychologist. Clinical Lead & Service Manager

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About the Trust

We are proud to provide high quality mental health and learning disability services, both inpatient and in the community across five boroughs of Greater Manchester - Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and Tameside and Glossop.

Our vision is for a happier and more hopeful life for everyone in our communities and our staff work hard to deliver the very best care for the people who use our services. We're really proud of our #PennineCarePeople and do everything we can to make sure we're a great place to work.

Our ambition is to maximise people's potential and we aim to promote an inclusive environment and improve the diversity of our workforce so our people truly represent the communities we serve.

All individuals regardless of race, age, disability, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marriage and civil partnership are encouraged to apply for this post. We would also encourage applications from individuals with a lived experience of mental illness, either individually or as a carer.

If you come and work for us we will offer a range of benefits and opportunities, including:

1. Generous annual leave entitlement for Agenda for Change and Medical and Dental staff.
2. Flexible working opportunities to support your work/life balance
3. Access to Continued Professional Development
4. Involvement in improvement and research activities
5. Health and Wellbeing activities and access to an excellent staff wellbeing service
6. Access to staff discounts across retail, leisure and travel

If you are Kind, Fair, Ingenious and Determined then we want you to come and join our #PennineCarePeople

https://www.penninecare.nhs.uk/values

Job overview

We are really excited to advertise this permanent 8b Practitioner Psychologist (Clinical or Counselling) post to lead Bury Secondary Care Psychological Therapies Service (SCPTS). The SCPTS works alongside Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) colleagues and the Complex Emotional and Relational Needs (CERN) team in Bury.

This is an excellent opportunity to bring clinical leadership to the team in order to further develop the clinical delivery model, provide clinical leadership and supervision to colleagues, work as part of an MDT and embed principles of trauma informed care.

Community Mental Health Services are going through a process of transformation and there is real opportunity for the post holder to support and be part of delivering the ambitions of 'The Community Mental Health Framework', particularly focusing upon the 'Psychological Therapies for Severe Mental Health Problems' (PT-SMHP) NHS-E paper.

The post will suit a highly skilled and compassionate Psychologist who really enjoys working as part of the team. The successful candidate will be trained in different therapeutic modalities, consultation skills and hold a desire to support and lead a team through change.

There are five Secondary Care Psychology Services across the Pennine Care footprint and you will work closely with, and be supported by, your peers across these teams. The postholder will also be supported and supervised by the Secondary Care Psychology pathway lead (Consultant Clinical Psychologist).

Main duties of the job

As a Principal Clinical Psychologist/ Principal Counselling Psychologist, the post-holder will be responsible for the provision of specialist expertise with complex and, or challenging cases within the secondary care adult Psychological Therapies Service.

The post-holder will work with the clinical lead for the adult mental health secondary care pathway and the borough leadership group to ensure robust and effective care for service users who present with complex and/or severe mental health needs.

The post holder will contribute to the development of effective psychological care with the multi-disciplinary team. A key component of the post will be to provide consultation, support, and where appropriate, clinical & managerial supervision to other psychological therapy staff.

The post holder will be part of supporting with the Community Transformation programme, embedding new psychological practitioner roles and meeting the ambitions of the 'Psychological Therapies for Severe Mental Health Problems 'PT-SMHP' NHS-E paper.

Working for our organisation

We are passionate about staff well-being and would encourage the postholder to be part of special interest groups, make peer supervision links and work closely with their community psychology colleagues. We are committed to staff development and have an extensive psychological therapies training programme.

We support staff to work flexibly and recognise and respect the roles our colleagues hold outside of their working hours. This focus helps us to retain staff and ensure people are happy in their place of work.

Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the top of our agenda. We believe that a diverse, inclusive and engaged culture is vital; that everyone's value should be recognised and respected.

Our trust values are:

Kindness

Fairness

Ingenuity

Determination

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached job description and personal specification for additional information about the role.

Person specification

Education & Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Doctorate level training in clinical or counselling psychology, including specific models of psychopathology, clinical, psychometrics, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS. Or, a post-graduate doctorate in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996)
• Registration with the HCPC as a practitioner psychologist.
• Additional further training and qualifications in a range of therapeutic models (e.g. CAT, EMDR psycho-analytic therapies)
• Additional further training in the use of specific psychometric and / or neuro-psychological assessment tools.
• Training in supervision of trainee psychologists and other professionals within the MDT.

Desirable criteria

• MBA or other management / leadership qualification.
• Additional qualification in clinical supervision.

Experience

Essential criteria

• Significant experience of working as a qualified psychologist
• Demonstrable experience of working as a highly specialist psychologist with complex adults
• Experience of working with service users who are complex and challenging within a community and or acute care pathway
• Experience working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and full range of settings including community, inpatients and acute care settings, primary care, residential.
• Experience working within multi-disciplinary services within community and acute care pathways
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for psychological care and treatment as an autonomous practitioner with complexity within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care.
• Experience in developing research and development programmes within psychological therapy services
• Experience in teaching and training qualified psychological therapy and of non-psychology staff
• Experience of the application of psychological therapy in diverse cultural and ethnic contexts.
• Experience in undertaking line management of psychological therapies staff.

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including multivariate data analysis.
• Evidence of continual professional development as recommended by the appropriate professional body.
• Knowledge of contemporary legislation relating to the delivery of mental health and psychological services and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management.
• Knowledge of professional issues in psychology and psychological therapies.
• Knowledge and experience of the application of clinical governance and risk management policies and procedures for the maintenance and improvement of psychological services.

Desirable criteria

• Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies.
• Familiarity with computing technology including spreadsheets and databases.
• Knowledge of SPSS or other statistical software packages.

Skills and Abilities

Essential criteria

• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical and clinically sensitive information to service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Highly developed skills and experience of working with complex, sensitive or contentious information.
• Ability to communicate effectively in a highly emotive, antagonistic or hostile atmosphere and to overcome barriers to acceptance / psychological resistance to potentially threatening information.
• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Highly developed skills in providing consultation to other professionals including medical staff and non-professional groups.
• High level skills in providing complex clinical and professional supervision including medical staff.
• Keyboard skills and skills in using word-processing, e mail and internet software
• Ability to work independently on a day today basis and use own initiative.
• Ability to set and work towards agreed goals, reviewed regularly in management supervision.
• Commitment to quality improvement in psychological services through multi-professional evaluation and audit of psychological services
• Ability to engage a range of professional and non - professional groups in co - production and cooperative working .
• Ability to contain and work with organisational stress and ability to 'hold' the stress of others
• Ability to sit in constrained position for client therapy and for computer work.
• Ability to manage frequent periods of prolonged concentration in service users' sessions, meetings and during computing tasks.
• Ability to move equipment (including casefiles, self -help materials, audio -visual equipment) between office base and other work settings.
• Ability to work face to face with (potentially aggressive) service users in isolated settings (including domiciliary visits) without other team members being nearby and in accordance with the Trust Lone Worker Policy .
• Ability to work to professional guidelines

Desirable criteria

• Record of having published research / review academic, or professional journals and / or books

Work related circumstances

Essential criteria

• Use of a car or access to a means of mobility to travel across the Trust footprint in line with service needs
• Willing to carry out all duties and responsibilities of the post in accordance with the Trust's Equal Opportunities and Equality and Diversity policies
• Appointments to regulated and controlled activities require an enhanced DBS disclosure.

A hints and tips document is attached below for guidance on completing your application form.

Disclosure Barring Certificate check

All of our new starters, who are appointed to a post which requires a Disclosure Barring Certificate check (DBS), will be recharged for the full cost of the check (DBS checks for volunteers are free of charge).

An enhanced DBS check costs £38 and a standard check costs £18 (plus an administration charge of £3.50). If you are a substantive member of staff, the full amount will be taken from your first month's salary.

If you are a member of staff on our bank, you will need to repay the full amount from your first salary.

We encourage you to register with the DBS update service at an annual cost of £13 (this is mandatory for bank staff).

Other important information

• We are committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and recognise the importance of ensuring our diverse service user population is reflected within our workforce. Unfortunately, we know that, at present, there is underrepresentation of our communities in our workforce. We welcome applications from people from diverse communities to help us grow, learn, be better and consider brilliant innovation diverse people bring.
• Priority will be given to applications from existing NHS employees who have an at risk status
• This post is on our terms and conditions (T&Cs). If you are an existing employee currently on transferred terms and conditions (i.e. you transferred from another employer and retained their T&Cs) and you are voluntarily applying for this post; if you are successful, you will be employed on our T&Cs
• You will be informed about the progress of your application following shortlisting. Only applicants who clearly demonstrate the criteria listed in the person specification will be shortlisted for interview
• We will notify you by email if you have been shortlisted or not. Computer access is available at your local job centre or library. Please make sure you check your spam filter/junk folder. If any mail goes to your junk folder please mark it as safe
• If you would like to be considered under the disability confident scheme, you will be guaranteed an interview if you meet the essential criteria on the person specification for the post
• If you require reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process please phone us on 0161 716 3181 at the earliest opportunity. We will support you to complete your application
• We reserve the right to close a vacancy earlier than the advertised closing date if a sufficient number of applications have been received
• Unfortunately we are not able to guarantee the transfer of lease cars, or cover the costs of early termination charges. We have a strict policy on unsolicited contact from recruitment agencies. Please do not contact our recruiting managers directly.

Vaccination

COVID-19 vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course our patients from the virus when working in our healthcare settings. Whilst COVID-19 vaccination is not a condition of employment at this time, we do encourage our staff to get vaccinated. We will be checking the vaccination status of all new starters so that we can manage individual and environmental risks, and so that we can support those who may be undecided about vaccination. If you are unvaccinated there is helpful advice and information at https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/ where you can also find out more about how to access vaccination. There is a current Government consultation underway which will determine whether some new starters may need to be vaccinated.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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

• Job Description (PDF, 120.1KB)
• Person Specification (PDF, 136.1KB)
• Policy Statement on Recruitment of Ex-Offenders (PDF, 117.0KB)
• Applicant Information pack (PDF, 505.6KB)
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion pack (PDF, 588.9KB)
• Hints and tips for your application (PDF, 128.7KB)