Overview
Go back Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust
Clinical Counselling Lead
The closing date is 08 March 2026
This role is offered on a permanent basis. The hours are part-time, 30 hours per week.
We are seeking a dynamic and motivated Counselling Clinical Lead to join our established Gloucestershire NHS Talking Therapies service. This is a newly created post designed to support the continued development of our counselling offer and strengthen clinical leadership across the service.
About you:
* Qualified Counsellor with professional accreditation (e.g., BACP, UKCP).
* A Postgraduate Qualification in one of the NICE approved counselling modalities below: PCE CfD, IPT, Brief Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT), Couples Therapy for Depression (CTfD).
* Substantial post-qualification experience within NHS Talking Therapies or related settings.
* Strong leadership and supervisory skills.
* Enthusiastic about service development and innovation.
* Excellent interpersonal and organisational skills.
* Committed to collaborative working and clinical excellence.
Main duties of the job
* Provide clinical leadership, guidance, and supervision to counselling staff.
* Lead on the development and expansion of counselling provision across the service.
* Ensure adherence to clinical governance, audit, and quality standards.
* Support workforce wellbeing, development, and reflective practice.
* Work closely with senior leaders to guide service strategy and quality improvement.
* Promote high-quality, evidence-based, client-centred care.
* Contribute to clinical pathways, service design, and evaluation.
* Support staff to deliver exceptional care while building a strong, resilient service.
The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.
About us
We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people\'s homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.
Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:
* 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
* 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
* 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust\'s priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.
This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.
Job responsibilities
* Develop and oversee a supervision model that supports the NHS Talking Therapies service counselling clinicians in their work with people.
* Provide clinical supervision for NHS Talking Therapies counselling staff.
* Establish and maintain effective communications within and external to the NHS Talking Therapies service, across Gloucestershire health services and partner agencies.
* Provide training, consultancy and supervision in NHS Talking Therapies approved counselling modalities and psychological approaches to a range of qualified/unqualified mental health/non-mental health staff.
* Deliver services in a wide range of settings and locations: educational facilities, GP practices, office/clinics, etc.
* Flexible working arrangements within 37.5 hours per week, with core service hours of 8am–8pm.
CORE KEY RESPONSIBILITIES – Clinical
* Accept referrals via agreed protocols within the service.
* Assess clients for suitability for CBT and other relevant psychological interventions.
* Make decisions on suitability of new referrals, adhering to referral protocols, and refer unsuitable clients as needed.
* Formulate, implement and evaluate therapy programmes for clients.
* Plan and prioritise workload, exercising autonomous professional responsibility for assessment, treatment and discharge of clients.
* Provide clinical supervision to and support the psychological work of other clinical staff.
* Evaluate clinical competence of staff using a performance framework and standard tools relevant to clinical modality.
* Educate and involve family members and others in treatment as necessary, conveying formulations in accessible language.
* Adhere to an agreed activity contract to minimise waiting times and ensure treatment delivery remains accessible.
* Attend multi-disciplinary meetings relating to referrals or clients in treatment, where appropriate.
* Complete all requirements relating to data collection within the service.
* Keep coherent records of all clinical activity in line with service protocols.
* Work with the team to maintain step-up and step-down arrangements in a stepped care approach.
* Assess and integrate work and employment issues into the therapy process.
* Carry out clinical audits of service performance and help disseminate results for feedback.
Training and Supervision
* Deliver and fulfil all requirements of the supervision structure.
* Ensure that staff and managers have access to a psychologically based framework for care of clients through provision of specialist psychological advice and guidance.
* Provide training to others as relevant to service need.
Please read the detailed Job Description and Person Specification for full details.
The Trust operates in line with UK visa and immigration rules. For information about sponsorship for certain roles, visit https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas
Person Specification
Other requirements
* Has access to a car and full driving license
* Experience of conducting appraisals and monitoring performance of staff
Qualifications
* Masters level in Psychotherapeutic Counselling, Psychotherapy or Counselling or equivalent experience or clinical training. A Postgraduate Qualification in one of the NICE approved modalities: PCE CfD, IPT, DIT, CTfD. Significant experience as a Counsellor/Psychotherapist.
* Accreditation with BACP, British Psychoanalytic Council, UKCP, IPT-UK, HCPC.
* Training in additional NHS Talking Therapies modalities (IPT, CfD, Couples Counselling for Depression, EMDR, DIT, Mindfulness).
* Training as a supervisor.
Length and nature of experience
* Significant understanding and experience with evidence-based psychological models and therapeutic approaches to health and illness, including third wave therapies.
* Experience in a service with agreed targets and demonstrated clinical outcomes.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975; a disclosure must be sought to check for previous convictions.
Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust
£55,690 to £62,682 per year, pro rata
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