Job Description

Communication and Working Relationships Clients, family and carers: To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner with clients who may have specific difficulties in understand and/or communicating and who may be hostile, antagonistic or highly emotionally disturbed. Multidisciplinary team colleagues: To work closely with colleagues in the multi-professional integrated mental health and wellbeing service on a day to day basis. Health & social care staff: To communicate with a wide range of health & social care staff in hospital and in community settings in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex and sensitive information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under the services care. To provide support & guidance in the application of psychological principles and techniques, and to foster reflective practice.

Senior managers & professional staff:

To maintain and build good working relationships with senior professional staff and managers across the Psychology and Psychological Therapies service and in DPT to foster a positive approach to the integrated mental health and wellbeing service and to enable effective negotiation. Planning and Organisation The service: To plan and prioritise own workload, balancing the demands of patient care, support and guidance of carers and professionals and service research and development activities. To contribute to the planning and organising of the psychology and therapy services within the locality area and to contribute to the development and improvement of provision of psychological services within services to best meet the organisations strategy and priorities. The multidisciplinary service: To provide psychology / therapy knowledge to the multiprofessional planning, development and marketing of mental health and wellbeing services.



Responsibility for Judgement and Analysis To provide specialist psychological therapy expertise and advice. To provide psychological therapies / other therapies, developing specialist psychological formulations and assessments of clients, formulating plans for their psychological treatment and implementing specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups. To support the Professional Head, General Manager, Practice and Strategic Development Leads and Professional Leads by undertaking service development and redesign projects and coordinating the resulting work within the team. Responsibility for Patient/Client Care, Treatment and Therapy Assessment & intervention: To make highly skilled evaluations and decisions about assessment, treatment and discharge, including the management of risk.



To formulate plans for psychological treatment and implementing specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups and to demonstrate awareness of diversity issues. Consultation & guidance: To provide advice, guidance and consultation on psychological aspects of patient care to colleagues, other service providers, patients, supporters and families. Policy, Service, Research, Innovation and Improvement The post holder is accountable for their own professional actions, acting within Trust policies and procedures and Professional Practice Guidelines. Policy & service: To support proposed changes for policy and for service development.



Responsibility for Finance, Equipment and Other Resources Careful use of equipment. Responsibility for Supervision, Leadership and Management Leadership & supervision: To supervise the work of assistants &/or trainees as required. To provide supervision & consultancy to health and social care colleagues. To support placements for trainee staff in line with professional guidelines Information Resources and Administrative Duties To maintain accurate records, compliant with Trust Practice Standards.



To be responsible for using an email account to generate, monitor, and respond to the e-mail traffic by which the Trust conducts much of its internal communication. Responsibility for Research and Development To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work within the PPT and local mental health services. To support project work including specific areas of audit, research or service evaluation As a clinician to be responsible for collecting clinical practice and outcome data that contributes to building practice based evidence and service evaluation. Freedom to Act The post holder is accountable for their own professional actions, acting within Trust policies and procedures and Professional Practice Guidelines.



To work autonomously within clinical professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the governance of psychological practice within the locality/specialty. Interpretation of professional and Trust guidelines, and implementing policies in conjunction with peers, Head of Profession and General Manager. To provide specialist Psychological therapy expertise and advice guidance and consultation on psychological aspects of patient care to colleagues, other service providers, patients, supporters and families. Any Other Specific Tasks Required To ensure all clinical care and treatment provided by psychologists/therapists is carried out under appropriate supervision and leadership.



To ensure that all relevant staff groups continuously update the skills and techniques relevant to their clinical work.