Principal Clinical Psychologist - ISF Clinical Lead

at  Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Halton & Warrington Community Learning Disability Teams (CLDT) for a Principal Clinical Psychologist to clinically lead the Intensive Support Function of our Teams.
The post holder will provide strategic and clinical leadership for the delivery of the ISF function across the Halton & Warrington CLDT.
They will be required to contribute specialist psychological knowledge and leadership to support the teams in the provision of specialist assessment, therapy, risk assessment and risk management plans to those individuals who have a learning disability with complex presentations, including people with behaviours of concern, autism, and forensic difficulties, and to their support systems.
The job requires the post holder to lead on and utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the teams/service.
The service model is one of supporting people who present with behaviours of concern, working closely with specialist practitioners and other health professionals to support this complex group of individuals to remain in their community setting and, where an appropriate admission has occurred, to be discharged promptly and safely in line with national Transforming Care strategy.
They will have clinical oversight of team caseload, particularly those who are on the dynamic support database and presenting in crisis with a risk to admission into hospital and/or placement breakdown.
Do you have a passion for delivering outstanding care that brings the 6 C’s to life? If so, we want to hear from you.
This is an exciting opportunity to work in an evolving team and at the same time be part of well-established community learning disability teams working alongside Clinical Psychologists, Occupational Therapists, Speech & Language Therapists, Physiotherapists, Consultant Psychiatrist, Nurses and Assistants of each discipline. The ISF model includes Principal Clinical Psychologist, Advanced Practitioner, Forensic Practitioner, Assistant Psychologist and Community LD Support Worker
We are looking for a confident individual who will be able to provide strategic and clinical leadership. In return the you will receive clinical and managerial supervision, have links to peer psychology meetings and appropriate training and CPD opportunities and an annual personal development review.
Our core operational hours are between 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday. Applicants must be able to be flexible with their working patterns to meet the needs of the service.
The ability, means and willingness to travel between multiple sites in the course of performing duties is essential. The role will involve regular travel across multiple sites in the Mersey Care Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust catchment area. Therefore, the post holder must be able to meet the travel requirements of this post. Please indicate on your application how you meet this requirement.
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.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. 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.
To provide strategic and clinical leadership for the delivery the Enhanced Intensive Support (EIS) function within the Community LD Teams. The post holder will be required to contribute specialist psychological knowledge and leadership to support the team in the provision of specialist assessment and therapy to those individuals who have a learning disability with complex presentation, including people with behaviours that challenges, autism and forensic presentation and to their support systems. The post holder will offer advice and consultation on individuals psychological care to other professionals and carers as well as holding an identified caseload of those individuals with the most complex needs. The job requires the post holder to lead on and utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service. The service model is one of supporting people whose behaviours challenge services, working closely with specialist practitioners and other health professionals to support this complex group of individuals to remain in their community setting and , where an appropriate admission has occurred, to be discharged promptly and safely in line with national Transforming Care strategy. The post holder will have clinical oversight of the team caseload, particularly those who are on the dynamic support database and presenting in crisis with a risk to admission into hospital and/or placement breakdown,
Duties and Responsibilities

CLINICAL:

To be a member of the service team and to contribute to, participate in and adhere to the guidelines and policies of that service.
To be responsible for the systematic provision of the Enhanced Intensive Support (EIS) service function at a highly specialist level. To adhere to the organisation of the service particularly with regard to membership of the multidisciplinary teams.
To ensure 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 interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care. This will include the following:
Highly specialist one-to-one clinical consultation
Highly specialist psychological assessment including issues of risk
Psychological interventions for individuals, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provision hypotheses
Decision making for and evaluating 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
Exercising autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based intervention plans
Staff consultation contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and intervention plan
Staff consultation on the use of psychological techniques
Staff supervision in the use of psychological techniques
To carry a specialised caseload of clients with complex, severe and enduring challenging behaviour and other psychological problems. To provide specialised psychological assessments of referred clients, based on appropriate use, interpretation and integration of a range of complex psychological data from a variety of sources, including psychometric tests which require manual dexterity.
To develop highly specialised clinical psychology interventions and management plans, based on formulations and an appropriate conceptual framework for the particular individual , and drawing upon extensive theoretical knowledge of different explanatory psychological models and specialist expertise in the implementation of evidence- based practice.
To prioritise and delegate work to ensure that skills are used to address the more severe and complex psychological presentation and crisis intervention working with people with LD on the Dynamic Support Database (DSD).
To consult with a wide range of services and negotiate appropriate professional relationships with both statutory and voluntary agencies to both ensure the referral of appropriate casework and communicate highly complex clinical information
To exercise autonomous clinical responsibility for implementing a range of psychological interventions with adults with behaviour that challenges their care setting, their families and carers, adjusting, interpreting and reformulating psychological models as appropriate on the basis of feedback, monitoring and follow up. To make referrals to other disciplines and specialist practitioners as appropriate, following discussion with other community team members and consultation with the Consultant Clinical Psychologist
To provide expertise, advice and support to other professionals, in order to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care to service users.
To undertake risk assessment and risk management of individuals presenting with risk of vulnerability, self-harm and / or risk of physical, sexual or emotional harm to others as part of the teams risk assessment process.
To participate directly in the teams caseload and provide support and guidance to other colleagues undertaking the role.
Please see attached job description for full detail

Please refer the Job description for details