Clinical Psychologist - Psychology Health

Job Purpose

• The principal purpose of the job is to
• improve the psychological health & wellbeing of people with persistent pain
• and related disorders who attend the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (Heavitree)
• (RDUH) Pain Management Service.

This will be achieved in this post by

Providing a Clinical Psychology and Psychological Therapies service to the

Pain Management Service at the RDUH. This forms a key component of integrated mental health and wellbeing services

within the Royal Devon University HealthCare NHS Foundation Trust.

Contributing to the local clinical leadership, co-ordination and

supervision of staff, trainees and volunteers employed by or attached to the

Pain Management Rehabilitation Service, under the general direction and

supervision of the Professional Manager.

Carrying a specialist caseload of clients, and providing advice and

consultancy to patients, family members, carers and professionals.

The post holder will be supported by the Professional Leads and also by

senior colleagues within the Pain Management Rehabilitation Team Psychology

Service and the wider Clinical Health and Neuropsychology Service. The post

holder will be expected to make good use of the expertise of others within the

service to further develop their clinical skills with this client group.

To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise

responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within

the health teams and services they will work with.

The post holder will receive regular professional and clinical

supervision in accordance to Trust policy and to Professional Practice Guidelines

set out by the British Psychological Society or appropriate designated

Professional Body.

Duties and

• Responsibilities
• Communication
• and Working Relationship Skills
• 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 from both Devon Partnership Trust

and the Acute Trust in the multi-professional integrated mental health/physical

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 Trust and the Acute
• Trust, to foster a positive approach to the integrated mental health and
• wellbeing service and to enable effective negotiation.

Analytical

and Judgemental Skills

To

provide specialist clinical/counselling psychology expertise and advice.

To

provide psychological 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. Proficiency in in

both individual and group therapy approaches is desirable.

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.

To provide complex assessment of specialist

conditions.

Planning

• and Organisational Skills
• The psychology service: To plan and organise own work within the service setting
• and to contribute to the development and improvement of provision of
• psychological services within the commissioned integrated mental health and
• wellbeing service to best meet the organisations strategy and priorities.

The multidisciplinary service: To provide psychology/therapy supervision

to the multi-professional planning, development and marketing of mental

health and wellbeing services.

Responsibility for Patient/Client Care, Treatment

and Therapy

Assessment & intervention: To provide expert psychological

• 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, 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.

Responsibility

for Policy and Service Development Implementation

The post holder is accountable for their own professional

• actions, acting within Trust policies and procedures and Professional
• Practice Guidelines.
• Policy & service: To support policies and procedures for the provision of
• psychology and therapy services within own service and other services within
• the Trust.
• R & D: To support the R&D activities of the clinical health
• psychology and neuropsychology service.

Responsibility

for Finance, Equipment and Other Resources

To be responsible for the safe keeping of equipment under

own use.

Responsibility for Human Resources, e.g. Supervision,

Training, HR Advice and Management

Leadership & supervision: To professionally supervise less

experienced psychology/therapy staff, trainees and volunteers.

To provide placement responsibilities for trainee staff.

To contribute to the provision of therapy supervision for non-psychology/therapy

staff providing psychological therapies within other Trust teams.

To support placements for trainee staff in line with

professional guidelines.

Responsibility

for 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 individual work within the CHNP

service and local integrated psychological medicine services .

To

conduct 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 clinical psychology 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/psychotherapists/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.