Job overview
As Principal Clinical Psychologist and Neurodisability Lead, you will work closely with the Clinical Psychologists and Paediatricians in RHCH, as well as the multidisciplinary team of Paediatricians, Clinical Psychologist, a Speech and Language Therapist, and a Child Development Practitioner, in the Early Years Autism Team in Basingstoke, providing lead contributions to neurodisability service developments across HHFT.
You will bring advanced skills to offer high-quality psychological input. This will include complex assessment, formulation and diagnostic thinking, intervention and consultation. You will support the development of integrated work across pathways to support consistent, uninterrupted experiences of care.
You will bring strong supervisory skills. You will have proven experience working positively with inter-agency colleagues.
Main duties of the job
For both Paediatric Psychology and Pre-school ASD:
To provide specialist psychological assessments of children and young people referred to the team a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care
Working for our organisation
Our vision is to provide outstanding care for every patient. Patient care is at the heart of what we do at our three sites: Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester and Andover War Memorial Hospital. Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides medical and surgical services to a population of approximately 600,000 people across Hampshire and parts of West Berkshire.
Our cultural ambition is to have a culture that places people at the heart of all we do, where we all belong, and where learning, improvement and excellence thrive.
We provide specialist services to people across the UK and internationally. We are one of only two centres in the UK treating pseudomyxoma peritonei (a rare form of abdominal cancer) and we are leaders in the field of tertiary liver cancer and colorectal cancer.
The trust employs more than 9,000 staff and has a turnover of over £500 million a year. As a Foundation Trust, we are directly accountable to our members through the governors. The Council of Governors represent the interests of their constituencies and influence the future plans of the Foundation Trust.
Tackling Climate Change: Hampshire Hospitals aims to embed sustainability and net zero carbon principles into the delivery of care across all its services. To find out more, search or .
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
1. To be responsible for holding and managing a clinical caseload and to exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the planning and prioritising of own workload and the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients, within the bounds of the service operational policy.
2. To formulate and implement plans for evidence based psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems.
3. To be responsible for implementing a range of complex psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make complex decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of complex clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.
6. To provide consultation, mentorship, supervision and advice about psychological issues at a high level of professional expertise to other members of the team/service and other professionals working with the service users, across a range of agencies/settings as appropriate.
7. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to benefit all children and young people seen within the service.
8. To undertake highly complex risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management, including assessments of individuals who are frequently aggressive.
9. To provide specialist psychological advice, consultation, training and clinical supervision to other professionals in order to develop a psychological understanding on the basis of which to plan, implement and evaluate evidence-based interventions for clients with complex needs.
10. To be responsible for the professional supervision and development of psychologists in the service. To assess the need for further training and access CPD when necessary. To lead on local and national initiatives relevant to psychology.
11. To liaise with other relevant child and adolescent mental health and ASD services as required.
Person specification
Education/Experience & Knowledge
Essential criteria
12. •Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or it’s equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
Desirable criteria
13. •Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice
14. •Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology
Training/experience
Essential criteria
15. •Active registration as a Practitioner Psychologist with the HCPC
Training and Qualifications
Essential criteria
16. •Post qualification training or proven equivalent experience in leadership or management
Experience and Knowledge
Essential criteria
17. •Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for client’s psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan.
Experience and Knowledge
Essential criteria
18. •Working knowledge of the provision of healthcare for children, young people and families within the NHS and the complex multi-agency systems which provide for the health, education and social care needs for children and young people.