Band 8a Highly Specialist Practitioner Psychologist

Job Overview

Part‑time (22.5 hours per week) Band 8a Highly Specialist Practitioner Psychologist on permanent contract in the plastic surgery psychology team at the Royal Free Hospital, London.

Main Duties

• Provide psychological care to patients across both in‑patient and out‑patient services, face‑to‑face and virtually.
• Focus on decision‑making, addressing psychological consequences of injury or disease, removing barriers to rehabilitation and care, and managing issues around body image and appearance.
• Provide guidance to colleagues and families as appropriate and engage in joint work.
• Attend multidisciplinary meetings and contribute to service development and evaluation.
• Supervise and train other psychologists and staff where required.

Education & Professional Qualifications

• Post‑graduate doctoral level training in counselling or clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 2000).
• Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) with entitlement to use the title Counselling or Clinical Psychologist.
• Evidence of personal and specialist professional development with achieved outcomes in relevant clinical specialism.
• Training in supervision of other psychologists.

Experience

• Experience working with a wide variety of patient groups across the life course and presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.
• Experience working in multi‑professional/medical teams.
• Experience in assessment and formulation of mental health in the context of physical health problems.
• Experience of referral and signposting to primary and secondary mental health services.
• Clinical experience in supervised psychological assessment and counselling in relevant specialism.
• Experience teaching, training and clinical supervision of other psychologists.
• Experience applying clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience working within a plastic surgery, burns or acute/community health setting, providing specialist psychological assessment and treatment across community, primary care, outpatient and inpatient settings.
• Experience working with people who have had cancer, chronic health conditions and other health problems across the lifespan.
• Experience working with other agencies including the voluntary sector.

Skills and Aptitudes

• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and quantitative data analysis as practiced within the field of psychology.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC.
• High level knowledge of theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies relevant to people with psychological needs.
• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management of risk.
• Well‑developed communication skills, both oral and written, for conveying complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to patients, families, carers and professional colleagues.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the patient group and the NHS.
• Skills in liaison with mental health services to facilitate effective referrals.
• Awareness of cultural and other diversity issues.
• Ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems.
• Skilled in joint work with occupational therapists, physiotherapists, nurses and medical doctors.
• Familiarity with SPSS databases and statistical packages.

Personal Qualities & Attributes

• Ability to form good working relationships with others in a multidisciplinary setting.
• Capacity to manage organisational stress and support others under stress.
• Ability to teach and train others using a variety of multimedia materials suitable for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate.
• Interest in and ability to contribute to service development, delivery and evaluation.
• Commitment to the strategic aims of the trust and the UCL partners academic health sciences partnership.
• Ability to articulate clearly the role of psychology in multi‑professional services, based on a good understanding of NHS and national professional policies.
• Professionalism and respect for all patients, colleagues and stakeholders.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Everyone is welcome at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. We are proud of our diversity and uphold equality for all staff and service‑users.

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