Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist
About us
At Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust we provide a range of mental health, learning disability, substance misuse, primary care and other specialist services designed around the needs of people in our city.
We have a dedicated and skilful team of people caring in Sheffield, which you could become a part of.
Our values are at the heart of everything we do. These are: working together for our service users, respect and kindness, everyone counts, commitment to quality, improving lives.
Job overview
We have an exciting opportunity for a clinical psychologist to join Long-Term Neurological Conditions (LTNC) in Sheffield.
LTNC is a trio of community teams for adults. The Neurological Enablement Service (NES) works with people with progressive neurological conditions (e.g., Multiple Sclerosis, Huntington’s disease). The Sheffield Community Brain Injury Rehabilitation Team (SCBIRT) works with people following acquired brain injury.And our Neuro Case Management Service works closely with NES and SCBIRT to improve quality of life for our services users in the most complex circumstances. We are motivated to help people achieve what is important to them through high-quality multidisciplinary evidence-based care and multiagency working.
This role will be varied and dynamic, working across all LTNC teams. You will be supervised by a Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist who is on the Specialist Register of Clinical Neuropsychologists. This post provides a great opportunity to complete the Qualification in Clinical Neuropsychology (QiCN; subject to funding).This post will include service development opportunities.
As part of the Older Adult and Neurological Conditions (OA&NC) psychology department you will have access to strong psychology support and leadership. OA&NC psychologists work into a range of settings (older adult mental health, dementia, stroke), allowing you access to a wealth of experience and supervision.We support training and development.
Main duties of the job- To provide a neuropsychologically informed clinical psychology service to patients with long-term neurological conditions and their families/ carers in the community (clinic base, own homes, care or nursing homes) requiring frequent travel.
- To work collaboratively with NES and SCBIRT’s MDT/ IDT’s, NCMS, and other agencies in the delivery of a stepped model of care for cognitive, emotional/ psychological and behavioural difficulties in the context of neurological conditions/ brain injury. This will involve significant provision of consultation, advice, training and supervision.
- To lead on and participate in various service development and quality improvement projects.
- To offer placements, supervision and training to trainee clinical psychologists.
Working for our organisation
At SHSC, we prioritise the well-being and safety of both our service users and employees. It is our policy and a condition of employment that all employees must join the DBS Update Service. This service carries an annual fee, which employees are responsible for paying up front.However, employees may claim this cost back through the Trust's Employee Expenses Reimbursement Policy. For those requiring a Basic DBS check, it is necessary to register for a DBS Online Account.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Senior Clinical Psychologist in Long-term Neurological Conditions (LTNC) 1.0wte
Band 8a
Reports to: Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist in LTNCAccountable to: Head of Older Adults and Neurological Conditions (OA&NC) psychology department, Sheffield Health & Social Care Foundation Trust (SHSC)
Bases: LTNC Upperthorpe, Albert Terrace Road, Sheffield, S6 3EB; and LTNC Michael Carlisle Centre, 75 Osborne Road, Sheffield, S11 9BF.
Liaises with: Other members of LTNC, OA&NC service, and other agencies responsible for a service user’s care.
Responsible for: Regular supervision of qualified health professionals, Trainee Clinical Psychologists, and potentially Assistant Psychologists and qualified Clinical Psychologists (dependent on experience).
Job purpose
To provide a highly specialist, neuropsychological service to the clients of the LTNC teams, requiring frequent travel. To work collaboratively with LTNC MDT's, neuro case managers, and other agencies in the delivery of a stepped model of care for cognitive, emotional/psychological, and behavioural difficulties in the context of brain injury/ neurological conditions.This will involve significant provision of consultation, advice, training, and supervision. To provide clinical supervision to less experienced psychologists, assistant(s), trainee(s) or other professionals, as required. The postholder is responsible for the allocation of clinical work to less experienced psychologists/therapists, counsellors, assistant(s), trainee(s) or other professionals.
To lead on service development and quality improvement projects, utilising research skills. To take sole professional responsibility and exercise autonomous professional and clinical judgement within the overall framework of Trust, HCPC and BPS policies/guidelines/standards.
General requirements
To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post-holder’s professional and service manager(s).
To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal, and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical neuropsychology and related disciplines.
To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the HCPC, BABCP, BPS and Trust policies and procedures.
To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues.
To attend and contribute to relevant professional meetings.
To develop and maintain good working relationships with colleagues within SHSC and in the statutory and voluntary services with the aim of promoting high standards of care and clinical practice.
To maintain professional registration as a Clinical Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council.
Working environment
To provide psychological care to service users with LTNC’s and their families/ carers in the least restrictive and least stigmatising environment, in a wide range of settings including nursing and care homes, outpatient and community settings, as well as clients’ homes.The job role will involve working alone in situations where there may be some risk of verbal or physical aggression from service users, carers, and the general public.
Principal duties
Clinical- To provide specialist psychological and neuropsychological assessments of service users referred to LTNC based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and psychometric tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with service users, family members and others involved in the persons care.
- To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological/neuropsychological treatment and/or management of a service users problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the persons problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across a full range of care settings.
- To work on a daily basis in online, face to face, individual, family and/or in group therapy settings with service users presenting with highly complex acute and distressing neuropsychological problems.
- To be responsible for implementing a range of specialist psychological/neuropsychological 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 different provisional hypotheses.
- To 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, family or group.
- To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
- To provide highly specialist psychological/neuropsychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals (both psychologists and non-psychologists) contributing directly to service users formulation, diagnosis and treatment plans.
- To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all users of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the service user group.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice to other professions on psychological/ neuropsychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
- To coordinate, where appropriate, complex intervention plans, taking responsibility for initiating planning and reviews of plans, and including service users, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.
- To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service users under their care and to monitor progress during both the course of uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
- To receive regular clinical professional supervision in accordance with professional practice (HCPC), BPS and Trust guidelines
- To provide supervision to other MDT staff psychological work, as appropriate.
- To provide supervision and placements for trainee clinical psychologists.
- To provide clinical supervision to less experienced qualified clinical psychologists, assistant(s), or other professionals as appropriate to level of experience.
- To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology.
- To provide highly specialised advice, consultation and training to staff (including both psychologists/therapists and non-psychologists) working with the service user group across a range of agencies and settings.
- To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of aspects of the teams clinical practice through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
- To contribute to the governance of psychological practice within their own team by developing and collecting relevant measures of outcome and audit and to provide consultation to other health and social care professionals to enable them to develop their own effective systems of governance.
- To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
- To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant psychologists/ qualified psychologists.
- To manage the work of assistant psychologists within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures (dependent on experience and qualification).
- To manage any waiting lists within the team and participate as a senior clinician in the allocation of cases taking into account skill mix and caseload. To respond to referrals, making autonomous professional and clinical judgements based upon complex information, prioritising accordingly and contributing to multidisciplinary decision making.
- To implement the policies and propose changes to working practices/procedures concerning professional good practice for the provision of psychological services as applicable in order to ensure the highest standards of service to the service user group.
- To propose policy or service changes which impact beyond own area of activity by participation in Trust working parties and other local development groups.
- To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
- To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
- To supervise DClinPsy research projects (clinical psychologist only)
- To supervise the research activities of assistant psychologists (dependent on experience).
- To initiate, undertake and supervise project management, service evaluations and complex audits with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
- To disseminate research findings through publications and conference presentations.
Person specification
Training & qualifications
Essential criteria- Post-graduate, doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996)
- Post-graduate diploma/ Masters in Clinical Neuropsychology (accredited by BPS for QiCN knowledge component)
- Qualification in Clinical Neuropsychology (QiCN)
Knowledge & skills
Essential criteria- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies, neurorehabilitation, and neuropsychological approaches in relevant populations (e.g., progressive neurological conditions, brain injury, dementia).
Experience
Essential criteria- Experience of working as a psychologist with people with neurological conditions and their families/ carers, and as part of an MDT.
- Experience of neuropsychological assessment, formulation and intervention with people with neurological conditions
- Experience of working with people with long-term neurological conditions within a community neurorehabilitation setting.
- Experience of working with people with progressive neurological conditions (e.g., Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s) and brain injury.
Please think about your personal values and how these align with our values when you are applying. Find out more about our organisation through our website.
We are a Disability Confident employer level 2 and hope to achieve level 3 this year. We offer a guaranteed interview to disabled applicants who meet all of the essential criteria for a role. When you apply you will have the opportunity to let us know if you require adjustments to be made, please contact us if you are not sure or if you require adjustments to the application process itself.
Our six staff network groups welcome new members, these are:
- The Ethnically Diverse Staff Network Group
- The Disability Staff Network Group
- The Lived Experience Staff Network Group
- The Rainbow Staff Network Group
- The Staff Carers Staff Network Group
- The Women’s Staff Network Group
We know how important flexible working can be to applicants and therefore we encourage you to discuss any working arrangements as part of this process. We will always aim to accommodate requests, wherever possible.
The Trust is committed to safeguarding adults and children and as part of our safe recruitment practice the successful applicant(s) will be subject to a check with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) if it is deemed appropriate for the role.The cost of the DBS check (currently up to £48.23) must be met by the successful applicant(s).
When applying for this post you will redirected to complete your application in our preferred applicant management system, Trac. If you are successfully offered a role, information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.In addition, in submitting an application, you authorise our Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the ESR IAT process should you be appointed.
Please note, all communication regarding your application will be made via email, please ensure you check your junk/spam folders as emails are sometimes filtered there.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) when writing job applications
If you choose to use AI or other tools to assist in writing your application, it's essential to personalise this information, particularly your supporting statement.
While AI can help streamline the writing process, these tools cannot fully grasp the context or requirements of the job you’re applying for, nor can they accurately reflect your skills, knowledge, and experience. It is crucial that you personalise your supporting statement by articulating these in your unique voice.
Relying solely on AI to write your application or supporting statement is not advocated by SHSC and could negatively impact your chances of success in the application process.
For example, AI responses…- usually lack relevance and fail to address the key criteria outlined in the job description and person specification.
- may come across as generic and fail to distinguish you from other applicants.
- may be ambiguous or open to misinterpretation. Without careful review and editing, the supporting statement could convey messages that are unclear or misconstrued by hiring managers.
- may include qualifications, skills, knowledge or experience that you do not possess, potentially leading to misrepresentation.
Supporting Statement
The supporting statement is an opportunity for you to showcase how your qualifications, knowledge, skill and experiences align with the requirements and criteria outlined in the job description and person.
Recruiting managers score applications based on the criteria listed in the person specification. Managers will be looking for evidence of how you meet these criteria. To increase your chances of securing an interview, provide examples of how you have applied your skills and knowledge in real-life situations.Share work-related successes and challenges you’ve navigated that align with the criteria. These could be from various aspects of your life, including work, education, and personal experiences.
Consider structuring your statement with clear headings or bullet points. This approach will help both you and the recruiting manager navigate through your application more effectively.