Band 7 Clinical Psychologist

Job Overview

Provide a service for people with learning disabilities in the London Borough of Harrow within the Harrow Community Learning Disabilities Service. This is an integrated health and social care multidisciplinary service.

The service also works collaboratively with extended local health and social care provider services that work with adults with learning disabilities who also access mainstream services, to ensure that health outcomes are met.

The post holder will provide specialist clinical psychology services to adults with learning disabilities and their families/carers, including assessment and the development and implementation of specialist psychological interventions.

The post holder will play a key role and contribute to the continuing development of the overall psychology service within the team.

The post holder will manage their individual defined caseload, including complex cases, independently, demonstrating problem-solving and clinical reasoning skills in line with evidence-based and person-centred principles. Furthermore, provide clinical supervision to assistant psychologists and other staff as deemed appropriate.

The post holder will be given an opportunity to be involved in clinical research and development.

Main duties of the job

• Ensure a high standard of clinical care for the clients and those of more junior staff, providing a comprehensive and appropriate psychology service to clients, families and carers
• Play a key role in the advanced assessment and treatment of clients who may have acute, chronic or complex presentations and determine the clinical diagnosis and intervention required
• Assess clients’ needs and direct them to other services as appropriate
• Maintain records as an autonomous practitioner
• Communicate effectively with health and social care professionals and outside agencies regarding client care and progress
• Communicate with other members of the MDT regarding policies, service development and management plans
• Undertake a significant clinical caseload, working under supervision in collaboration with other agencies and health and social care professionals

Working for our organisation

Trust Values: COMPASSION contribute to a caring environment

RESPECT people’s differences

EMPOWER by supporting others

PARTNERSHIP recognise other external services

Care Quality Commission (CQC): Comply with all standards.

Clinical Leadership: The responsibilities attached Job Description and Person Specification.

Professional registration: You are expected to registar with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) .

Safeguarding: Be aware of local safeguarding procedures and whom to contact and report concern.

Infection Control: All duties must be carried out in accordance with the infection control policies and procedures.

Data Protection, Confidentiality and Access to Health Records: All information concerning patients/clients and other staff members must be treated as confidential and adhere to policies.

Promoting Equality and Diversity: No job applicant and employee will receive less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital/partnership status, race, religion, age, colour, ethnic origin, disability, part time working status and diagnosed or suspected HIV/AIDS status.

Health and Safety and Risk management: You must be aware of the responsibilities placed on you under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and relevant policies.

Trust is committed to ensuring you achieve a good work/life balance, access to a wide range of support including flexible working options, childcare support and development opportunities.

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

Clinical Direct

• Responsible for offering comprehensive specialist assessments to adults with learning disabilities, their families and paid carers when the need for psychological assessment is indicated, and using these assessments as the basis for establishing and evaluating therapeutic interventions. This includes carrying out specialist cognitive psychometric assessments as necessary
• Interpret the results of these assessments to make appropriate psychological formulations, judgements, and recommendations for interventions. This process involves careful consideration, drawing on specialist psychological knowledge of theories and models to make sense of complex facts or situations.
• Work autonomously in a variety of contexts, including in the community, which may at times involve working with clients with complex needs in their own homes. This includes face-to-face sessions with individual clients and families.
• Work effectively and reflectively, maintaining sustained attention and concentration for considerable periods of time.
• Verbally communicate highly complex and sensitive information, often requiring empathy and reassurance, in potentially hostile or highly emotive environments.
• Be accountable for one’s own professional actions and work within the clinical psychology code of practice and ethics, and Trust policies and procedures.
• Communicate complex information and formulations to a range of people, including families, carers, service users and professionals from psychology and other disciplines, both within the team and outside agencies.
• Adapt verbal and non-verbal communication to facilitate clients’ understanding.
• Liaise appropriately with all agencies involved and keep them informed of relevant information and recommended guidelines necessary to provide high standards of care for clients, within the recommended limits of confidentiality.
• Provide a clinical service to clients from a range of minority ethnic populations, using an appropriate specialist person-centred approach to care that considers language, religion, cultural beliefs and customs, and adapt assessment, formulation and intervention as appropriate.
• Communicate across language and cultural barriers, jointly working with and offering debriefing and/or supervision to interpreters as required.

CLINICAL Indirect

• Use a broad theoretical knowledge base and specialist clinical skills to develop and support the psychological skills of other staff members, professionals, and paid and unpaid carers through teaching, training, supervision, support and consultation.
• Offer specialised advice, guidance and support, both formally and informally, to staff in the joint community team for people with learning disabilities, staff teams in statutory and voluntary organisations, and families and carers of people with learning disabilities.
• Provide a psychological perspective and expertise for service or team activities, including clinical care, team or service dynamics and organisation, in a range of settings, e.g. case discussions and team meetings
• Responsible for developing and maintaining knowledge of local resources and developing working relationships with relevant statutory, voluntary and community groups and organisations.
• Receive regular clinical management supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines to ensure high-quality work, engage in the Individual Performance Review process and continuing professional development, and work within a clinical governance framework.

Administration

• Plan and prioritise own clinical workload and work with multidisciplinary colleagues on complex cases in the setting most appropriate to the client’s and/or service’s needs.
• Record, monitor and report on clinical work, and communicate complex clinical information to a variety of recipients (e.g. service users, families, carers, other professionals, and statutory and voluntary organisations) orally, in writing and electronically, as specified by the service.
• Maintain client records as an autonomous practitioner.

Management

• Contribute, as a member of relevant working groups, to the development, implementation and evaluation of the team. Implement Trust and local policies.
• Organise own day-to-day activities, and plan and prioritise own clinical and non-clinical workload
• Identify, propose and lead changes to work practices and procedures in own area of work, and join working groups leading service-wide and specialist developments as appropriate

Human Resources

• Supervise the work of assistant psychologists and trainee psychologists where applicable
• Responsibility for clinical supervision of trainee clinical psychologists (once appropriate post-qualification experience has been gained and with appropriate training), teaching and training of staff from other disciplines in the wider team and in other statutory and voluntary sector agencies in the wider community.
• To participate in Trust appraisal and be committed to ongoing continuing professional development, including participation in further specialist training as agreed with supervisor/head of department.
• Develop and deliver, jointly with other psychologists where appropriate, teaching activities for clinical psychology doctoral training programmes and in-service training programmes within the team and the Trust.

Person specification

Education/ Qualification/ Training

Essential criteria

• Postgraduate Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS
• Clinical supervision training for Doctoral trainees
• Eligibility for graduate membership of BPS
• HCPC registration

Desirable criteria

• Relevant specialist training or qualifications e.g. CBT, systemic therapies, neuropsychology, etc.

Experience

Essential criteria

• Relevant experience working as a qualified Clinical Psychologist in learning disability settings
• Experience of delivering clinical supervision
• Experience of delivering teaching and training
• Experience of assessing and treating the mental health needs of people with learning disability across the full range of care settings
• Work in a multi-cultural setting, including working with interpreters

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working with people with behaviours considered to be complex or challenging and/or forensic history

Knowledge and Skills

Essential criteria

• Able to provide and receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information in a highly emotive and sometimes hostile atmosphere, in a range of relationships and settings
• Able to use highly specialist skills of empathy to overcome barriers to understanding and acceptance
• Able to compare and select from a range of treatment options, based on formulation
• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies for people with learning disabilities who have complex needs
• Skills in the use of highly complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management in relation to people with learning disabilities.
• Able to analyse highly complex outcome data from a number of sources and provide clear advice to colleagues supporting the understanding and application of such analyses
• Able to plan, organise and prioritise own clinical workload
• Knowledge of psychological research, national policy and legislation relevant to learning disability
• Able to record and report on as required clinical information

Desirable criteria

• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis
• Able to provide a culturally competent service
• Able to innovate on the basis of theoretical knowledge

Clinical Other

Essential criteria

• Able to concentrate intensely for a substantial proportion of working time, during client contact,teaching/supervision sessions, team meetings, preparing written work etc.
• Respectful approach to service users, families, carers, colleagues and other professionals. Willing to negotiate and can handle confrontation effectively and professionally
• Able to work to professional guidelines and must be capable of accountability for own work, of autonomous clinical practice, of being guided by precedent and of working towards defined results
• Non-judgmental

Desirable criteria

• Calm manner and positive and supportive approach
• Willing to learn and develop in a changing environment
• Warmth and flexibility
• Sensitive to views & needs of service users & carers from all backgrounds