Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To provide a qualified clinical psychology service according to a plan agreed with the multi-disciplinary team and within the overall framework of policies and procedures. To provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy at the same time as offering advice and consultation on service users’ psychological care to psychologist and non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines. To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service. The psychology team provides a highly specialist service providing assessment and intervention to service users with learning disabilities and histories of complex problems, including offending and challenging behaviours. Principal Responsibilities:
1. To provide highly specialist psychological assessments of service users referred to psychology based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with service user, family members and others involved in the service user’s care.
2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a service user’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the service user’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
3. To exercise autonomous responsibility for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make skilled 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, family or group. To work with other professions to deliver therapy in an integrated manner.
5. To provide highly specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to service user’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
6. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all service user of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the service user group.
7. To ensure that all members of the service user’s clinical team have access to a psychologically based framework for the understanding and care of forensic service user, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological knowledge, research and theory.
8. To actively undertake and co-ordinate risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice and liaise with other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management. To participate in multi-disciplinary and multi-agency risk assessment in complex service networks.
9. To work as a member of a community based and ward based multi-disciplinary team, exercising clinical responsibility for the service user’ psychological care-planning within this role and being part of wider MDT decisions around clinical decisions, capacity, risk and discharge planning. To consider the psychological perspective around the general ward environment to think about how ward/team dynamics may contribute to the wider functioning of the ward.
10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service user under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
11. To provide staff supervision/reflective space for ward based staff
12. Has line management responsibility for assistant clinical psychologists and/or trainee clinical psychologists or other members of the psychology team as needed
13. To manage the workloads of assistant clinical psychologists and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/service’s policies and procedures and have clinical responsibility for their work.
14. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.
15. To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant clinical psychologists and/or trainee clinical psychologists or other members of the psychology team as needed.
16. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology and other disciplines, as appropriate, including the supervision of clinical psychologists in training.
17. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the service user group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
18. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team’s operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
19. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
20. To initiate and undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
21. To represent the views of the psychology team on such committees and working parties.
22. To contribute to divisional policies and procedures and feedback progress within senior divisional meetings.
23. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the psychology team’s operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
24. To lead the relevant research activity within the psychology team as required by the service.
25. To establish and maintain research partnerships with relevant internal and external individuals and groups.
26. To foster and inspire innovative ideas and developments aimed at enhancing the experience of service users and carers, and support their development through research and/or service development.
27. To undertake service development, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
28. To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing and to lead on these projects.
29. To lead on service development projects and/or care pathways within the division, liaising with other individuals through this work, including co-production with service users. To feedback progress within senior divisional meetings.
30. To be involved, as appropriate, in the short listing and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists, and of team members from other professions, where appropriate.
31. To exercise responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the team, in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of service users; and to assist in clinically related administration, conduct of audits, collection of statistics, development of audit and/or research projects, training and project work.
32. To contribute to the training and support of other staff in psychological care, including contributing to the organisation of training seminars and conferences for others.
33. To maintain up to date knowledge of clinical and policy related best practice and new developments in the field of personality disorder.
34. To manage information resources relating to this and ensure their wide availability, working closely with Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust knowledge, services and relevant external partners.
35. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning the historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
36. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users.
37. To contribute to the development of systems to support, mentor and supervise service users working in the service.
38. To be engaged and participate in the future development of the psychology team and promote a culture of continuous service improvement.
39. To act as part of a gate-keeping team in assessing individuals as part of pre-admission assessments.