Senior Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Senior Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

The closing date is 08 March 2026

An exciting opportunity has arisen to take an active role in shaping mental health provision within the newly formed Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. We are looking for a Practitioner Psychologist to join the Portsmouth and Southeast Hampshire acute services, blending roles to provide a connected approach in working with patients who are acutely unwell. The role is an opportunity to work part time within the Acute Psychology Service based at the Orchards Psychiatric Unit, working with inpatients and outpatients under the Portsmouth Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team.

We are looking for a motivated and committed person, who will already have experience of working with people with complex mental health problems and developing psychologically informed practice within a multi disciplinary team. You will have a proven track record of developing clinical interventions at the pace required for an inpatient or crisis mental health setting. You will be committed to leading health care professionals delivering high quality psychological interventions efficiently to people experiencing acute mental health crises.

Main duties of the job

This is an excellent opportunity for the right person to help build psychological skills within a well established team. The post holder will contribute to shaping the vision and delivery of the Acute Psychology Team assessment and intervention by working with other psychologists and in training and supervision of other members of the team. This role will also enable you to build on your service evaluation and research skills as well as supervising CAPs and trainee clinical psychologists on placement.

Portsmouth & Southeast Hampshire Psychological Services have well established clinical supervision structures and an excellent track record of CPD, as well as good links with Southampton University, particularly with the Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology and the Post Graduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

About us

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides joined up mental and physical healthcare for around two million people across our communities. With over 13,000 staff working in the community and local hospitals, we deliver care at every stage of life, helping people live their best and healthiest lives.

Our mental health services include community based support and early intervention in psychosis (EIP) for both adults and young people, alongside a network of specialist inpatient wards covering forensic, learning disability, eating disorder and older person's care.

We deliver extensive physical health services too, from urgent community response teams helping frail and older patients remain safely at home, to hospitals at home teams providing acute level care in familiar surroundings. Our neurological services offer rehabilitation and treatment for conditions including Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, Motor Neurone Disease, Head Injury, Cerebral Palsy and Stroke. Across Hampshire, our community hospitals provide inpatient rehabilitation as a step down from acute care, and our dedicated teams also staff Treetops Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Portsmouth, offering expert, compassionate support.

Everything we do is underpinned by our CARE values of compassion, accountability, respect and excellence.

Job responsibilities

Further information about the Trust and this role can be found on the Job Description and Person Specification document attached. It is important to us that we ensure our recruitment processes are accessible and inclusive to everyone - if as a potential candidate you are concerned that a person specification may prevent or restrict your application for employment as a result of unintentional barriers on the grounds of your sex, race, age, sexual orientation, religion/belief or disability please initially contact the Trust's Recruitment team - detailed in the advert. The Trust will seek to resolve this issue wherever possible.

We are happy to talk Flexible Working - all requests for flexible working options can be discussed as part of the interview process.

Person Specification Qualifications

• Post graduate doctoral level training in psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS.
• Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• Pre qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
• Post qualification training in a specific psychological modality relevant to the role.

Experience

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity 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 teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non professional groups.
• Experience of working in a multi disciplinary team.
• Experience of service development and working with teams.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience.
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

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.

Salary

£55,690 to £62,682 a year. Please note for part time hours the salary will be pro rata.