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Job description

We are looking for an enthusiastic, motivated Clinical Psychologist with a clinical interest in long term neurological conditions and acquired brain injury to join our excellent established interdisciplinary team. The CNRT consists of a consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, clinical nurse specialists, a neuropsychologist, speech and language therapists and assistant practitioners. The CNRT works in both outpatient, domiciliary and other community settings with patients with neurological conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, Traumatic Brain Injury and Functional Neurological Disorders. The service covers both rehabilitation and long term neurological condition management and involves working with a number of different agencies to support the holistic management of each individual. The successful candidate will work alongside an experienced Clinical Psychologist in Neuropsychology and an Assistant Psychologist. They will have some experience in or willingness to develop experience in neuropsychological assessment, psychological interventions for individuals and families with neurological conditions and cognitive rehabilitation. The post holder will also be part of the Clinical Health Psychology Service which works in a number of other areas of physical health in the Trust and will provide professional support.

The post holder will be accountable for their own professional practice and responsible for providing highly specialised assessments and programmes of psychological care for individuals and their families coping with acquired and neurodegenerative neurological conditions. These conditions include Traumatic Brain Injury, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease and in some cases Functional Neurological Disorder. As well as managing their own patient workload they will be responsible for supervising the work of assistant psychologists, and other health professionals in the specialist area. They will work collaboratively with the other health and social care professionals and non-professional carers. They will work within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Community Neuro-Rehabilitation Team’s policies and procedures and will be supported by the Clinical Psychologist in Neuropsychology/Clinical Team Lead.

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust is an integrated Trust and the only provider of NHS acute care in Walsall, serving a population of 286,700, providing inpatient and outpatient services at the Manor Hospital as well as a wide range of services in the community. Walsall Manor houses the full range of district general hospital services under one roof. The £170 million development was completed in 2010 and the continued upgrading of existing areas ensures the Trust now has a state-of-the-art Critical Care Unit, Neonatal Unit, Obstetric Theatre, and Integrated Assessment Unit facilities. Work is also well underway on its multi-million pound new Urgent and Emergency Care Centre which will house a new Emergency Department (including Children’s Emergency Department), co-located Paediatric Assessment Unit, Acute Medical Unit and Urgent Care Centre. This is scheduled for completion this year.

We would particularly welcome applications from people from a BME background and people with a disability as these groups are currently under-represented at senior level. We value diversity within our Trust and are working to achieve equality in our recruitment.

We support flexible working for all employees and prospective applicants.

Any settled workers meeting the requirements must be offered the position in preference to any non-resident candidates meeting the requirements, unless the role falls under a PhD-level code, in which case sponsorship may be attained.

Clinical:

• Provide a specialist clinical psychology service to patients with neurological conditions and where appropriate their families.
• To provide sub-acute rehabilitation for service users discharged from acute and rehabilitation hospitals to community settings working towards patient-centred MDT goals.
• Assess and interpret highly complex clinical situations and information from a variety of sources including, the multi-disciplinary team, self-report measures, rating scales, neuropsychological tests and semi structured interviews with patients, partners, family members and others involved in the patients care.
• Develop and refine formulations using psychological models and frameworks to provide patients and their partners with specialised programmes of care, based on evidence of efficacy, to help them adjust to and cope emotionally with the often significantly distressing aspects of having a neurological condition. This may occur in individual or group settings.
• Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options, taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual or family.
• Develop trusting and empathic relationships with clients and be able to communicate highly emotive information with clarity and sensitivity, often in the context of chaotic life circumstances.
• Exercise professional responsibility for the assessment and treatment of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
• Participate in relevant multi-disciplinary teams and work collaboratively and in an integrated manner with other health professionals e.g. consultants, clinical nurse specialists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and other NHS and social services staff.
• Attend CNRT MDT meetings and provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professional groups as appropriate.
• Carry out neuropsychological assessments where and if appropriate and communicate findings to the client, family members and other health and social care staff involved.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• Responsible for prioritising work activities according to service and user needs and resources and managing own clinical case load.
• To attend psychology service meetings.

Service development and management

• Work collaboratively within the NHS and multi-agency groups to advance good working relationships with local health, social care staff and service users to ensure integration of initiatives and services.
• Be proactive in identifying and proposing safety, quality and service improvements to the psychology service in the CNRT in consultation with the lead clinical psychologist and other staff and in line with local and national guidance documents e.g. NICE Guidelines.
• To be an active participant in service development within the CNRT including attendance and involvement in team meetings, away days and service improvement initiatives. To participate in and suggest initiatives to further the clinical governance agenda within the service.
• To contribute towards raising the profile of the CNRT through marketing and communication exercises within the trust and externally.
• To take delegated responsibility for specific changes to practice and development projects as appropriate.
• To manage and undertake collection of data for use in service audit and research projects within the Community Neurological Rehabilitation team and take delegated responsibility for specific audit and research projects in relevant areas of clinical practice and service delivery using a range of research methodologies.
• Responsible for maintaining satisfactory records of service operation in accordance with agreed protocols, regular auditing service data and ensuring security of confidential data.
• Adhere to current policies in the CNRT and all trust policy and procedures related to risk, health and safety and confidentiality of information.
• To be accountable to the Clinical Psychologist in Neuropsychology/Clinical Team Lead for clinical governance e.g. issues of quality, clinical effectiveness and clinical risk.
• To be managed by the Clinical Psychologist in Neuropsychology/Clinical Team Lead in consultation with the Consultant Clinical Psychologist – Head of Clinical Health Psychology.
• To participate in Clinical Health Psychology Service governance projects and service activities.

Teaching, Training and Supervision

• Receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with good practise guidelines and as expected for all clinical psychologists
• Provide regular supervision for assistant clinical psychologists and other health professionals where appropriate.
• Provide support to other staff working in challenging circumstances to manage the emotional demands of their clinical roles where appropriate.
• Responsible for providing education and training in the psychological aspects of care to empower and enable other health and social care staff to achieve the highest standards of psychosocial care in accordance with the trusts psychological therapies policy.
• Take appropriate care of trust equipment and resources used in the course of work.

Research and Development

• Undertake service related audit and evaluation with colleagues to help develop service provision.
• Undertakes formal research as an integral part of the job.
• Supervise psychologically related research of trainees, assistants and other health professionals where appropriate.
• Disseminate results through presenting at case discussions, workshops, and conferences and/or through publication.
• Consider theory, evidence based literature and research to support evidence based practise in individual work and work with other team members.
• Examine and study new ways of working or transferring existing practical and theoretical models of work from one context to another.
• To have good working knowledge of and ensure compliance with National and Local guidelines, policies and procedures. To keep up-do-date with clinical developments by the use of clinical databases and electronic technology.
• To be responsible for maintaining own competency to practise, through CPD activities and to maintain a portfolio which reflects personal development.
• Participate in the staff appraisal scheme as an appraisee and be responsible for complying with your agreed personal development programmes.

Organisational & Information Technology

• To be responsible for organising and planning own caseload to meet service and patient priorities. Readjusting plans as situations change/arise.
• To ensure safe use, transportation, storage and maintenance of therapeutic resources.
• To be responsible for timely inputting and management of data to Trust data systems (ie; clinical activity data)
• To work as an effective and responsible team member, arriving and leaving promptly, working effectively during agreed hours.
• Skilled at use of information technology systems to support service related work e.g. word processing and use of databases.
• Uses information technology systems to support formal and informal research activities: developing databases, collecting, collating and entering data and statistical analysis.

Freedom To Act

• Works as an autonomous practitioner accountable for own professional practice in respect of assessment, therapy and discharge of clients within defined caseload.
• Works within the Professional Codes of Conduct of the Health Professions Council and the British Psychological Society.
• Professionally accountable to the Consultant Applied Psychologist.
• Work is professionally monitored and managed by a more senior Applied Psychologist.

Other Duties

The information supplied above is intended to summarise the key responsibilities and duties of the role. The post holder may be required from time to time to carry out other reasonable requests and duties as required, consistent with the responsibilities of their Banding and development as agreed between employee and manager.