Clinical Psychologist - Liverpool - ref. q75768315

We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

Job overview

Band 7 - Band 8a dependent on experience

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Adult Eating Disorders Service in Liverpool and Sefton as a Clinical Psychologist (band 7 or 8a with relevant experience). We are looking for 1.8 wte Clinical Psychology posts (full or part-time hours available) for 12 months fixed term (ending 31st March 2026).

Client presentations include Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder. We also see people with an Atypical Eating Disorder presentation.

We offer a monthly support group for relatives and friends of those who access our service and are passionate about our developing service user co-production group. Additionally, the service also provides psychological therapy for the local Weight Management Service.

Main duties of the job

To provide a qualified specialist clinical psychology service to clients of the service team, across all relevant sectors within an equality and human rights framework.

To provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy, offering advice and consultation on clients’ psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non professional carers.

To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Directorate’s and team’s policies and procedures. To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team 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 clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s psychological problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.

To be responsible 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 where appropriate.

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 clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment and treatment of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based enhanced care plans.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

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.

To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and reviewing of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, 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 clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, or its approved equivalent accredited by the BPS

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Values

• Continuous Improvement
• Accountability
• Respectfulness
• Enthusiasm
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Strong customer service belief
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented

KNOWLEDGE/EXPERIENCE

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient 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.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts

SKILLS

• Expertise in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, formulation, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well developed and effective communication skills, oral and written, to communicate 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 nonprofessional group
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
• Knowledge of IT systems including word processing, email and local electronic patient information systems
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Reasonable adjustments will be made for those with sensory impairment.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of service governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular practice of at least one specialised psychological therapy. exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Ability to self-reflect, use clinical supervision appropriately and consider complex organisational and team dynamics

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of at least one specialised psychological therapy.

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust’s guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email [email protected] to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.

The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.