Senior Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

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Joining #TeamNELFT means you'll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We're CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for three consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Psychiatric Liaison Service within the Acute and Rehabilitation Directorate of NELFT. We are looking for a dynamic Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to take up an innovative and exciting post based within the Psychiatric Liaison Service based within King George Hospital and Queen's Hospital and will involve working with inpatients across the medical wards, ICU and A&E among other areas.

Applicants should have:

• Doctoral level training in clinical/counselling psychology and registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Experience of working in a trauma-informed evidence-based way with clients presenting with severe mental health difficulties, people in crisis and carers, with significant levels of risk.
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary service context.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will offer trauma-informed evidence-based psychological assessment, formulation and treatment with adults and older adults presenting in crisis with a range of mental health difficulties within the context of a physical health environment. The successful applicant will need to be comfortable working across the acute pathway, including working with carers and specialist services, consulting with multidisciplinary teams both within the medical wards and A&E as well as mental health teams, liaising with services post-discharge. The candidate will use psychological interventions to help reduce levels of risk in service users presenting to the psychiatric liaison service to assist with successful discharge home or to an inpatient unit for ongoing treatment, including frequent attenders to A&E in crisis.

This post would suit someone with a strong interest in multidisciplinary working with service-users who present with complexity and significant levels of risk. Experience of working with service users in mental health crisis such as psychiatric liaison, home treatment teams or inpatient units would be essential. Knowledge and experience in the field of medically unexplained symptoms, functional neurological disorder, dementia and delirium is desirable.

Working for our organisation

Starting with NELFT

NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop-in sessions focusing on engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period. Internal applicants are exempt from the probationary period (unless you are an internal applicant currently part way through a probationary period or currently a bank member of staff).

High-Cost Area Supplement

This post also attracts payment for High-Cost Area Supplement of 15% of the basic salary (minimum payment of £4,313 and a maximum payment of £5,436 per annum pro rata).

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached job description and person specification for more information about this role and working at North East London NHS Foundation Trust. We encourage you to refer closely to this when completing your application.

We welcome your application even if you do not meet all the criteria listed in the person specification. Any development needs to help you succeed in the role, can be discussed at the interview stage.

Person specification

Working in Clinical Health setting

Essential criteria

• Experience of working within clinical health psychology

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working with medically unexplained symptoms

Clinical Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working in crisis and acute psychology setting for 1 to 2 years minimum

Experience in A&E and Crisis

Essential criteria

• Experience of working with frequent attenders to A&E and mental health services
• Experience of working with service users with complex or risky presentations

Older Adult Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working with dementia and delirium

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

• A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
• A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our effortsto support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a 'Top 10 Family Friendly Employer' from the Working Families Charity.
• Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.
• Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that's a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.

Supporting our Armed Forces

We recognise the valuable contribution that the Armed Forces community make to our organisation. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and achieved Gold Award under the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme. We have supportive policies, guaranteed interview schemes for veterans. reservists and military spouses and give additional leave to our Reservists so that they can attend their annual camp.

Equal opportunities employer

We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity and positively encourage applications from all sections of the community regardless of any protected characteristic.

We are a Disability Confident employer and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with disabilities. If you require this application in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape please contact the recruitment team on 0300 300 1530 or email recruitment@nelft.nhs.uk.

Correspondence with us

You are advised to regularly check your emails (including any junk mail/spam folders) for correspondence related to this post.

In the event of a high number of responses to any advert, NELFT reserves the right to close the vacancy early. If you do not hear from us within three weeks of the closing date then please assume you have not been successful on this occasion.

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

• Senior Clinical / Counselling Psychologist PLS ARD (PDF, 441.9KB)
• NELFT Application - Hints and Tips (PDF, 38.4KB)