Employer Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Torbay Hospital Town Torquay Salary £47,810 - £54,710 Per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 26/09/2025 23:59
Clinical Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 7
Job overview
This is an exciting opportunity to join our growing Clinical Health Psychology (CHP) team as a full-time Band 7 HCPC/BABCP accredited Clinical Psychologist/Counselling Psychologist or High intensity CBT Therapist/Psychological Therapist. The post-holder will work across health specialties providing psychological assessment, formulation and intervention to support patients presenting with a diagnosed physical health condition. The role will also involve the delivery of indirect interventions with health and social care professionals, including psychological consultation, supervision and training, as well as opportunities to contribute to wider service development.
This post can offer experience in working in a range of health specialties including outpatient Adult General Health and Psycho-oncology, as well as hospital Inpatient services.
Main duties of the job
* To enhance psychologically informed care through the direct delivery of specialist psychological assessment, formulation and evidence based psychological interventions to adults with physical health difficulties and potentially their carers/families. And indirectly through providing interventions such as teaching, training and consultation with multi-disciplinary teams and non-psychologically trained practitioners.
* The role may be based across a number of sites in the acute and community setting as well as some home working. The main CHP base is at Torbay Hospital.
* To work autonomously, within the Trust’s and the HCPC’s and the BABCP’s professional guidelines, as well as liaise and work closely with colleagues and other staff who work internally and externally to the Trust.
Working for our organisation
We are a progressive service and are passionate about utilising psychological theory and techniques effectively to support patients living with a physical health condition. There are a mix of psychological professions in the team, supported by a dedicated administrative team, and we welcome individuals who are keen to embrace the strengths that this brings to our working and professional identity. The team are trained in CBT, ACT, EMDR, and Compassion-focused Therapy and there is a strong commitment to both evidence and practice based interventions.
We pride ourselves on our flexibility of working practices and our family first approach to working which allow staff to maintain healthy work-life boundaries. Our commitment to this approach includes agile working, combining remote and face-to-face interactions.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Communication and working relationships
· Maintain effective communication in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, and build effective working relationships with a range of health and social care staff across all levels, both within and outside of the organisation
· Excellent written and verbal communication skills to ensure that any correspondence is of a high standard
· Provide excellent, professional communication and care when representing our service
· To liaise and work collaboratively with colleagues within the department. To be respectful and value the people you work with
· To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, highly complex, sensitive or contentious condition specific information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients, where there may be barriers to acceptance and within highly emotive environments
· To maintain and build good working relationships with senior professional staff and managers to ensure co-ordination of work in the Clinical Health Psychology service
Planning and organisation
· Under guidance from supervisor or line manager be able to plan and organise daily workload
· Excellent organisation and prioritisation skills to meet an ever-changing workload
· Be responsive to change and able to work in an environment which has constant interruptions
· Help to plan and organise any teaching/training, seminars, workshops under the direction of service lead
Analytical and judgement
· To monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care
· To make skilled and complex assessments, formulations and decisions about treatment options considering a range of options which draw on both theoretical and therapeutic models
· To undertake risk assessment and risk management for relevant individual clients and to provide both general and specialist advice for psychologists and other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management
· To provide clinical consultation to other health and social care staff and foster reflective practice in teams
Responsibility and Accountability
· Act with integrity and professionalism, ensuring that you are demonstrating responsible behaviours at all times, in accordance with our Trust values
· To be accountable for own professional actions and to fully observe the BPS (2009) Code of Conduct/BABCP guidelines and the DCP Generic Professional Practice Guidelines (2008). To reflect and learn from our mistakes
· Be responsible for your dedicated workload
· To make highly skilled assessments and decisions about treatment options considering both theoretical and therapeutic models
· To formulate and implement plans for the psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s health problem, employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings. Psychological interventions may be for individuals, carers, families and groups
· To undertake risk assessment and risk management for relevant individual clients and to provide both general and specialist advice for psychologists and other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management
· To provide psychological consultation to staff working with this client group within health, education and social services, both at a policy and individual client level
· To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients
· To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan
· Ensure that all work is of a high standard and meets regulatory compliance
· To provide clinical consultation to other health and social care staff
· To observe the requirements of government legislation, local and national policies and associated initiatives
Responsibility for Patients and Client Care
· To make highly skilled assessments, formulations and decisions about treatment options and individualised programs of care considering both theoretical and therapeutic models
· To undertake risk assessment and risk management for relevant individual clients and to provide both general and specialist advice for psychologists and other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management
Policy and service responsibility
· To participate in developments within the services, the wider organisation and community to facilitate the appropriate provision of services
· To contribute as appropriate to service evaluation, research and audit
· All staff have a responsibility to ensure that the needs of the service are met in a timely and efficient manner
· Encourage and welcome feedback to ensure that we as individuals, and as a collective team, learn and continually improve
Responsibility for finance, equipment and other resources
· Everyone has a responsibility to ensure effective and conservative use of resources
· Maintain paperless filing wherever possible (excluding where any statutory duty may exist). Do not print/ photocopy unless necessary
· Ensure conservative use of stationery, not using equipment to excess
· Ensure that any stationery or resource needs are reported to the appropriate person for future orders
Responsibility for supervision, leadership and management
· To assist in assessing and evaluating trainees’ skills and competences
· Where applicable and qualified to do so to supervise the work of less experienced members of the Clinical Health Psychology team
· To provide advice, consultation, training and clinical supervision to other members of the team for their provision of psychological care
· To receive supervision from an experienced Clinician in the Clinical Health Psychology Team
· To provide teaching to the local Clinical Psychology/ IAPT training courses as appropriate
· Work flexibly to ensure the department collectively achieves its goals
· Work with colleagues, seeking or offering support as required
· To develop leadership skills through the organisation training
Information Technology and administrative duties
· To ensure information governance is adhered to in all aspects of your work
· To ensure you are adhering to GDPR regulations/Data Protection Act 2018
· To be proficient in use of trust IT systems
· To keep up to date with patient related admin (e.g. patient records and letters) and be able to co-ordinate and communicate well with the admin team
Responsibility for Research and Development
· To contribute as appropriate to service evaluation, research and audit
Person specification
* Current registration
* Experience
You will be joining the organisation at an exciting time. As the first fully integrated care organisation in England, we are working to improve the way we deliver safe, high-quality health and social care. We have a positive and vibrant working atmosphere, we are proud of our investment in our staff both in terms of developing potential career skills and valuing people.
If you provide support to a family member or friend with health or care needs, we aim to be a Carer-friendly employer. We have a ‘Staff Carers’ policy which includes flexible working where possible and a Carer’s Passport scheme that links you into support and discounts.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
* We reserve the right to close vacancies early if we receive a high volume of applications. Therefore, we encourage you to apply promptly.
* Please read the job description carefully and tailor your application to reflect the requirements of the role.
* Applicants who identify in their application form they are a part of the Armed Forces community will be guaranteed an interview, provided they meet the minimum essential criteria outlined in the job description and person specification for the role. Step into Health guidance can be found on our NHS Employers website.
* Correspondence will be sent via Trac, text, and email. Please ensure you check your email and Trac account regularly.
* Applicants with no previous NHS experience will ordinarily be appointed to the minimum of the band.
* If you have not received an invitation to interview within 28 days of the closing date, please assume that your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion.
* It is your responsibility to ensure the timely receipt of appropriate references.
The Trust is committed to preventing discrimination, valuing diversity and achieving equality of opportunity. No person (staff, patient or public) will receive less favourable treatment on the grounds of the nine protected characteristics as governed by the Equality Act 2010. If you require support you can obtain this from our Equality Business Forum which has representatives from all protected groups.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
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