Band 8d Director of Psychological Services
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
The closing date is 11 November 2025
We are excited to offer a new opportunity for an outstanding Band 8D Practitioner Psychologist to lead our Clinical Health Psychology and Clinical Neuropsychology Service, a role combining strategic vision & clinical leadership across a high-impact, multi-site service.
This is a unique time to join us, with experienced psychologists joining via TUPE alongside those already embedded within the Trust. You\'ll have the autonomy & support to shape psychological care pathways, and build a cohesive, well-supported team.
Our service is rich in professional diversity & provides input across a wide range of clinical areas, across adult and paediatric care, including regional and supra-regional specialties such as burns, cancer, HIV, and neuropsychology, offering a stimulating clinical landscape.
As one of the UK\'s largest teaching trusts, UHB is a global leader in medical innovation & frequently involved in pioneering research.
As Director of Psychological Services, you will play a key role in strategic planning, clinical governance, & organisational leadership.
You\'ll foster strong multidisciplinary collaboration & lead the delivery of psychologically informed care that makes a real difference.
We are seeking a values-driven leader with a passion for high-quality care, collaborative working, & staff wellbeing. If you\'re ready to shape the future of psychological services in physical healthcare & clinical neuropsychology, we\'d love to hear from you.
Interviews to take place 28/11/2025
Main duties of the job
This is a newly created leadership role with responsibility for the strategic planning, professional management, organisational development, and clinical delivery of psychological therapies across the Trust.
As the Director of Psychological Services, the post holder will ensure effective psychological governance across all clinical and corporate divisions and support the development and integration of new services. They will provide senior strategic leadership on Trust-wide initiatives, including Risk Management, Patient Safety, Clinical Effectiveness, and Quality Improvement, offering expert input on post-incident response, behavioural change, and learning systems such as Appreciative Inquiry.
The role also involves representing Psychological Services at regional and national levels, contributing to policy, service development, and innovation. The post holder will ensure excellent clinical standards and governance across services.
They will lead and manage the Psychological Professionals across the Trust, including Assistant Psychologists, Trainees, Researchers, and other psychological professionals--fostering a strong, values-led culture of excellence, supervision, and professional development.
About us
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust strives to have an inclusive culture where everyone feels like they belong, can thrive, knows that they add value and feels valued. We do this by developing compassionate and culturally competent leaders, being values driven in all that we do and by creating a welcoming and inclusive workplace that thrives on the diversity of our people. As such we want to attract and recruit talented individuals from all backgrounds, and for each of you to feel supported for the diversity you bring, to achieve your full potential. For those staff with a disability, including physical disability, long term health condition, mental health or neurodiverse condition, this also means being committed to making reasonable adjustments needed for you to carry out your role.
Job responsibilities
Please note: For a detailed job description for this vacancy, please see attached Job Description.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* 2:1 or above Degree in Psychology with eligibility for Graduate Basis for Chartership (GBC) with the BPS.
* Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS), including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
* Post-doctoral level training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice
* Registration as an HCPC regulated Practitioner Psychologist
* Additional leadership and/or management training
* Qualification in supervision
* Registered with the British Psychological Society and/or Association of Clinical Psychologists.
Experience
* Assessed extensive experience of working as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, including additional extensive post qualification experience within physical health psychology and/or clinical neuropsychology.
* Extensive experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including inpatient, outpatient, community, primary care, residential care settings including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
* Extensive experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients\' psychological care and treatment and working within the context of a multidisciplinary team.
* Extensive experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision.
* Evidence of highly specialist expertise in the delivery of evidence based and high intensity psychological interventions.
* Extensive experience of professional management of qualified and pre-qualified clinical psychologists.
* Demonstrable evidence of significant specialist clinical supervision within a scientist-practitioner framework, including individual supervision, group supervision and case presentations.
* Experience in audit and evaluation of clinical services.
* Experience of NHS management tasks and negotiating with NHS managers, professionals, colleagues and other agencies.
* Extensive experience of representing the profession in policy and practice fora.
* Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
* Knowledge and experience of working with other relevant client groups within physical health and / or clinical neuropsychology.
* Extensive experience working with other client groups who have highly complex psychological problems.
* Extensive experience of working within a multicultural framework.
* Extensive experience of operationally and/or professionally managing other Psychologists and Psychological Professionals.
* Evidence of peer reviewed publications, presentations at conferences, or similar contributions.
* Experience of relevant local and national roles e.g. as a National Assessor, as a committee member for Special Interest Groups, or within the British Psychological Society or Association of Clinical Psychologists.
* Experience of establishing, developing and maintaining partnerships with Higher Education Institutes.
Additional Criteria
* Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological phenomena, an interest in models of service delivery, and an ability to articulate the value added by psychology services to Trust Clinical and Corporate activities.
* Ability to contain and work with organisational stress and ability to contain the stress of others.
* Extensive experience in and ability to demonstrate excellent senior leadership and management skills.
* Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material.
* Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
* Ability to articulate and interpret clearly the role of the psychological professions based upon a good understanding of the framework of government and national professional policy.
* Demonstrable commitment to supporting and promoting the needs of a diverse population.
* A commitment to the evaluation of services, enthusiasm for both multi professional and uni- professional audit, and a wish to continue to develop expertise in the service area.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
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