Job overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Practitioner Psychologist who is keen to work inourNeonatal Unit (NNU).The funding for this post is a result ofPsychology Leads for the Neonatal Operational Delivery Networks (ODN) across Englandco-producing a document recommending that all NNUs should have a psychologistin the neonatal team.
You will work collaboratively with the neonate’s parents and siblings to reduce thenegative psychological consequences on the family of a neonate’sadmission to the NNU. As part of the neonatal team you willwork with and supportyour neonatal colleagues through, for example, supervision and trainingto help reduce anynegative psychological impact of working in NNUs. As part of your role youwill have contact with colleagues across the ODN and those working in the local Maternal Mental Health Service.
The model of provision is the hub and spoke modelwhereyou, working in one of the spokes, will be supervised bythe Thames Valley Hub Lead Clinical Psychologist (the hub).The support you will receive will help youensureappropriate governance of the unit and will bringknowledge of trusts and systems, commissioning requirements, audit,research and service development. You will be line managed by a Consultant Clinical Psychologist who works in the Trust and you will join ateam of 24 Practitioner Psychologists who work in 14 services in the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust.
Preferred working days are Tuesdays and Thursdays
Main duties of the job
You will be providing specialist psychological support to babies, their families and staff on the Neonatal Care Unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. Your role will also involve working in the multidisciplinary team who value psychology, to provide specialised advice and consultation on babies and families psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues.
There is a teaching and training programme in the team that you will part of and will be providing supervision for non-psychologist colleagues in order to enable them to identify early families who will benefit from specialist input. For example, developing and promoting screening tools for bedside staff to use.
Your research skills will be used for the purposes of audit, policy development and research and you will join with other practitioner psychologists in the Thames Valley and Wessex Neonatal ODN as well as with the Lead Psychologist in the ODN.
Preferred working days are Tuesdays and Thursdays
Working for our organisation
Why colleagues think we are
What does Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust offer you?
As part of our BHT family, you’ll benefit from learning and development opportunities to support your career progression.
Alongside NHS benefits of generous annual leave entitlement and pension scheme, you'll have access to NHS discount schemes.
We provide a range of health and wellbeing services to promote a healthy, happy workforce.
What do we stand for?
Our vision is to provide outstanding care, support healthy communities and be a great place to work.
Our mission is to provide personal and compassionate care every time.
We are working hard to increase diversity at all levels within the trust. We believe a diverse workforce can have a positive effect on both staff wellbeing and patient outcomes.
We welcome applications from black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates, LGBTQ+ candidates, candidates with disabilities and care-experienced candidates.
We make employment decisions by matching our service needs with the skills and experience of candidates, regardless of age, disability, gender, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, or sexual orientation.
Person specification
Skills, Abilities & Knowledge
Essential criteria
1. Ability to work independently and collaboratively within a team.
2. Ability to cope with a fast paced work environment, maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems
3. Ability to assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.
4. Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information, including contentious and highly distressing information, to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
5. Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
6. Planning and organising skills for caseload management.
7. Skills in self-management, including time-management
8. Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance, including regular supervision, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
9. Experience of working within a multicultural framework, Skills in working with diversity.
10. Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies as applied in a clinical health psychology setting.
11. A commitment to the evaluation of services, enthusiasm for both multi-professional and uni-professional audit, and a desire to continue to develop expertise in the area.
12. Approachable and empathic personality, excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and able to defuse difficult, volatile situations.
13. Understanding of confidentiality.
14. Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of practice governance and to support and maintain own and service’s standards of clinical practice.
15. Able to contain and work with high levels of distress from clients and with organisational stress.
16. Ability to exercise appropriate levels of self-care and to monitor own state, recognising when it is necessary to take active steps to maintain fitness to practice.
17. Motivated towards personal and professional development with a strong CPD record.
18. Well developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies relevant to working with families in an acute healthcare environment.
19. Ability/skills in working through interpreters.
Experience
Essential criteria
20. Experience delivering skilled psychological assessments, interventions, follow-up and data monitoring utilising at least 2 therapeutic models.
21. Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups and across the full range of clinical severity.
22. Experience of liaising with carers and families and external organisations that support these groups.
23. Ability to show autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients and liaising with other professionals as and when necessary.
24. Experience of working within an MDT and sharing psychological/psychotherapeutic knowledge & skill e.g. consultation, reflective practice, supervision groups.
25. Experience designing and conducting research activities at a doctoral level including service related research and audits.
26. Experience of supervising pre-qualified psychologists and/or professionals from other disciplines.
27. Experience of working in a neonatal, perinatal, critical care or other acute hospital environment.
28. Experience of working with trauma and bereavement
29. Experience of teaching and training others, using a variety of complex multimedia material suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings
30. Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts
31. Experience of teaching and training health professionals in psychological concepts.
Education, Qualifications & Training
Essential criteria
32. Doctoral level training in clinical/counselling/health psychology, including models of psychopathology, psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.
33. Registered with HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist and evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC.
34. Eligible for Full Membership of the BPS Division of Clinical or Counselling Psychology.
35. Further training relevant to working in acute medical settings
36. Pre or post-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
Special Circumstances
Essential criteria
37. Ideally will be able to travel between Stoke Mandeville and Wycombe Hospitals for Trust meetings
PPE requirements: Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust requires all colleagues to wear appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) in accordance with our infection prevention and control procedures.
COVID-19 and Flu vaccinations remain the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course our patients from the viruses when working in our healthcare settings. We encourage our staff to be vaccinated when recommended.
Application deadline: This post will close on the closing date stated at midnight, however if we receive a large number of applications or there is a change in circumstance, we may be required to close a job before the advertised date.
Application information: If you are offered a job, information will be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records (ESR) system.
Shortlisting: The monitoring and safeguarding sections are not made visible to the shortlisting panel. The safeguarding section may be made visible to the interview panel, dependent on the role being recruited into.
Travel expenses: It is Trust policy that travel expenses for interviews will not be reimbursed.
Smoking: All Trust sites are NO SMOKING. Smoking in all areas of the buildings and premises is prohibited.
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