Consultant Clinical Psychologist - Inpatient Services

Consultant Clinical Psychologist - Inpatient Services Band 8c Main area Mental Health Grade Band 8c Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 350-MHC

Site Knowsley, St Helens, Warrington & Halton Town Whiston Salary £74,290 - £85,601 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 25/06/:59 Interview date 04/07/2025



Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.



Job overview An exciting opportunity has arisen within our Adult and Older Adults Mental Health Inpatient Speciality for an experienced and enthusiastic Consultant Clinical/Counselling Psychologist. We welcome applications from experienced 8b's who are looking to broaden and further develop their expertise and have a keen interest in developing further their leadership skills and service development.

We are looking for the post holder to support and lead service transformation across the wards, embedding cultural change in relation to positive behaviour support, embedding care pathways and evaluating outcomes. The post holder will have clinical responsibility for the psychological provision for the 10 inpatient wards in the Mid Mersey locality (8 adult acute wards and 2 older adult wards) and will work closely with the Inpatient Consultant Psychologists and Clinical leads in the inpatient service line.

The post holder will work clinically in the Mid-Mersey Division, the exact site depending on service need. Professional leadership is an essential aspect of the post and you will lead a team of 5 applied psychologists (8bs/7/8as) and 10 Assistant Psychologists. This is a great opportunity to join a caring and committed network of inpatient psychologists.

Main duties of the job The post holder will work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice, ensure that systems are in place and working effectively for the clinical and professional supervision and support of all psychological services staff within the service for which the post holder has designated professional responsibility, including clear systems for effective recruitment, professional appraisal and the identification of CPD needs.

The post holder will be responsible for audit, policy and service development and research activities and/or programmes as required by the service. To propose and implement policy and service development changes within the area served. A work plan will be developed with the postholder which will be reviewed on a yearly basis depending on the needs of the service.

You will promote and maintain high standards of care whilst supporting and assisting to implement local and national strategies and initiatives. Developing and embedding clinical guidelines, pathways and processes will also be integral to this role, helping to hold the psychological framework, trauma informed care in mind for the teams, support reflective practice and post incident support is also part of the role. Excellent leadership, interpersonal, professional skills and substantial post qualified experience are necessary for the role, andwe look forward to hearing from you.

Working for our organisation Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities We encourage applications from people who are from BME communities.

Please refer to the attached Job Description & Person Specification for further details.

Person specification Qualifications

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology accredited by the BPS, or its approved equivalent.
• Registration with Health & Care Professions Council as Practitioner Psychologist
• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialized areas of psychological practice

Knowledge

• Assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist for a significant period , including post qualification experience within the designated specialty where the post is located.
• Substantial demonstrable 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 outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and 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.
• Experience of working with Psychosis and complex Mental health difficulties.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of providing consultation, supervision and training to multidisciplinary staff.
• Doctoral level knowledge of clinical psychology including highly developed knowledge of lifespan developmental psychology, models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, and two or more distinct psychological therapies
• Expertise in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment formulations intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Well developed and efficient communication skills, oral and written, to communicate complex, highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and a wide range of lay and professional persons within and outside the NHS
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology
• Knowledge of legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
• Formal training in supervision of psychologists and/or other psychological professionals.
• Skill and experience in using IT systems including word processing, email and local electronic patient information systems.
• Experience of professional management of qualified and pre-qualified clinical psychologists.
• Experience of multi-professional management of teams or services within the designated specialty.
• Experience of representing the Profession in local policy fora
• Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies

Values

• Accountability
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented

Personal

• Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological phenomena, an interest in models of service delivery, and an ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi-disciplinary mental health services
• Ability to demonstrate leadership and management skills.
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