Employer North London NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Islington Learning Disabilities Partnership (ILDP) Town London Salary £75,328 – £86,114 Per annum including HCAS Salary period Yearly Closing 03/06/2026 23:59
Lead Clinical Psychologist – Islington Learning Disabilities Partnership
NHS AfC: Band 8b
Thank you for your interest in the North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT). This is an exciting time to join us and be part of our journey to improve mental health care across North London and deliver excellent services to our local people. We will achieve this through the North London Way, as we:
- Collaborate at every level by living our values to create the right conditions for us all to work together.
- Develop our new Trust culture, to help make our new Trust a great place to work and to receive great care.
- Empower our teams to lead the planned improvements in our services, by skilling them and giving them the tools to make the changes.
- Focus on delivering excellence at every level to improve our performance and ensure consistently high-quality care across all our services.
- Ensure that research, quality improvement, and technology lead the way and are embedded in our services.
- Take a trauma informed approach to everything we do.
We proactively welcome diversity in our workforce and pride ourselves on being an inclusive employer. We aim to recruit from our local communities and provide opportunities to all including apprenticeships, veterans, care leavers and more.
The North London Way to deliver: Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.
As a values‑driven Trust, we recruit through our values. Our selection processes focus on behaviours, attitudes, and examples that reflect our organisational values and commitment to compassionate, high‑quality care.
Job overview
We are delighted to be advertising the role of Lead Psychologist in the Islington Learning Disabilities Partnership (ILDP). This role will lead a team of psychological professions and provide psychology leadership and expertise within the integrated health and social care team. They will lead in ensuring the systematic provision of a high‑quality specialist clinical psychology service to clients, relatives, carers and all appropriate specialist services for people with learning disabilities in Islington.
The post is provided with professional supervision by the Associate Director for Psychological Professions within Older Adults, Rehab and Learning Disabilities (LD) Care Group in NLFT and managed by the Assistant Director for Islington Learning Disabilities Partnership (ILDP). Specialist LD clinical supervision is currently provided externally.
Main duties of the job
The main duties of this post will include:
- Lead in delivering a psychological assessment and intervention/therapy service provided by psychologists and other clinical members of the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment. Identify and develop training/awareness workshops to assist the delivery and improvement of high‑quality services for people with learning disabilities, their relatives and carers.
- Provide clinical supervision and clinical leadership of the psychology team members in delivering a psychological consultation, assessment and intervention service, and support to colleagues who provide psychologically based care and treatment, within ILDP.
- Provide consultation and psychology expertise to other disciplines with the integrated Learning Disabilities Service. Work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise local responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team. Dissemination of broader clinical governance issues will be a significant part of the role as the psychology representative within ILDP.
- Liaise and collaborate with other consultant and lead psychologists in NLFT Learning Disabilities services.
Working for our organisation
North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT) is committed to improving mental health care across North London to deliver excellent services to our local people.
- We will provide consistently high‑quality care closer to home.
- With our partners in North London and each borough we will ensure equity of outcome for all.
- We will offer great places to work, providing staff with a supportive environment to deliver outstanding care.
Why NLFT?
- We develop and retain our staff through leadership behaviours and managers programme and many more opportunities.
- We promote flexible working and support staff with a range of health and wellbeing initiatives.
- NHS Discounts, generous annual leave and NHS pension scheme.
- Excellent internal staff network.
Person specification
Qualifications / Registrations
- Post‑graduate doctoral level qualification in clinical or counselling psychology as accredited by the British Psychological Society, or British Psychological Society Statement of Equivalence.
- Current registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a clinical psychologist or a counselling psychologist.
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
- Completion of pre‑ or post‑doctoral post‑qualification specialist training in areas of practice relevant to the post (e.g. Positive Behaviour Support, ADOS‑2).
Skills / Abilities
- Skills in the use of a range of methods of psychological assessment (including psychometric assessments), intervention and management for the full range of problems presented by adults with Global Learning Disabilities, including behaviours that challenge.
- Skills in communicating effectively (orally and in writing) with service‑users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside of the NHS.
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of multi‑media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non‑professional groups.
- Interest and ability to consider the role and responsibilities of psychologists in embedding non‑discriminatory practice.
- Highly developed 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).
- Interest and ability to contribute to service development.
Experience / Knowledge
- Extensive and demonstrable experience of working as a senior clinical/counselling psychologist.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
- Knowledge in the areas of Global Learning Disabilities, Mental Health, Autism, ADHD, behaviours that challenge (including Positive Behaviour Support) and dementia.
- Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment, both as a qualified clinician leading the care and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
- Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision of qualified psychologists.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
- Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the Health Care Professions Council and British Psychological Society.
- Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care/services.
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of supervising others outside of the psychological professions.
- Experience of multi professional management of teams or services within the designated speciality.
Personal Qualities
- Ability to form good working relationships with others in a multidisciplinary setting.
- Ability to work collaboratively with senior managers and staff in service delivery and developments.
- Ability to demonstrate Trust Values.
Other Requirements
- Ability to identify provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severe behaviours of concern.
- Ability to articulate and interpret clearly the role of the profession of clinical psychology based upon a good understanding of the framework, government and national professional policy.
- Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and behaviours of concern.
- Ability to develop and use complex multi‑media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
- Record of having published in either peer‑reviewed or academic or professional journals and/or books.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
By applying for this role, you accept that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at improving efficiencies within the NHS both to make cost savings for NHS organisations and to save you time when your employment transfers.
We are an equal opportunities employer and are committed to creating an inclusive, fair, and supportive workplace for all. We actively welcome applications from individuals who are under‑represented within our workforce and are dedicated to eliminating discrimination in all its forms.
As a Disability Confident (Two Ticks) employer, we guarantee an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role and are committed to making reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.
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