Principal Psychologist

Principal Psychologist: (Company Name - Subscribers only)

• Do you have experience of working in Adult Mental Health services
• Are you looking for experience of leading a service, under the management of a Head of Clinical Services, with supervision from the Head of Psychology?
• Are you confident in assessing and understanding a wide range of clinical presentations, for individuals with a range of psychological needs / risk?
• Can you demonstrate significant experience in delivering psychological therapies and providing clinical supervision?

NHS 24 have an exciting opportunity for you to join the Service Delivery directorate within the Mental Health Services as a Principal Clinical Psychologist. Read on to find out more…

Who We Are

As (Company Name - Subscribers only)’s unique provider of a national tele-health and tele-care service, we are responsible for the delivery of health advice and information by telephone and online services to the population of Scotland 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. NHS 24 is a patient-focused service providing the people of Scotland with triage, advice, guidance, referral and information on health and healthcare services.

We have six regional centres – Aberdeen, Dundee, South Queensferry, Hillington, Cardonald and Clydebank. This post will be based in our Cardonald Contact Centre.

This role

To work within the enhanced psychology pathway within NHS 24 Psychological Services, and across NHS 24 Mental Health Service, providing highly specialised Clinical Psychology expertise to support access to evidence-based treatments for individuals with a range of psychological needs / risk. This will primarily involve the further development of, and evaluation of, services and being responsible for service development for aspects of psychological care and managing the workloads of staff, within the framework of the team / service’s policies and procedures.

Working Hours

The operational hours of the service are Monday to Friday 9am to 9pm and Saturday 10-6pm. Although you will predominately work Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, you will be required to be fully flexible, when required, within these hours. Alternatives to flexible working hours can be discussed.

Main responsibilities

• To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service
• To provide psychological interventions to patients accessing support through NHS 24 Psychological Services.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment, and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
• To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team / service.
• To implement the systems for the assessment, identification, escalation, and treatment processes for those individuals who have mental health disorders. To ensure robust clinical governance systems in place to establish individual and team formulations as well as patient/staff centred treatment plans.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, and in future, groups, within and across teams, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To provide supervision for staff delivery psychological support as part of NHS 24 Psychological Services.
• To contribute to, and be responsible for, the further development of, and evaluation of, the service.

Successful Applicant will:

• Have significant experience of working in adult mental health and an ability to understand a range of clinical presentations including a range of psychological needs / risk.
• Skills as a Senior Clinician to undertake clinical leadership roles and tasks within multidisciplinary and multi-agency contexts.
• Experience of working within an Mult-Disciplinary Team and the disciplines involved in adult mental health.
• Substantial clinical experience delivering psychological therapy and supervision
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment, both as an independent practitioner and within the context of a multi-disciplinary team.
• Aware of the limits of one’s competence and expertise and work within those boundaries.
• Ability to deal with pressure calmly and sensitively.
• A high-level ability to communicate effectively at both a written and oral level complex, highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and a wide range of lay and professional persons within and outside the NHS.
• Evidence and commitment to ongoing Continuing Professional Development.

Salary

NHS 24 offers a complete benefits package, with a 9-month Fixed term opportunity on a Band 8B contract with a salary ranging from (£74,003- £79,164) Per Annum (pro rata if applicable). Placement on salary scale is dependent on confirmation of previous relevant NHS service.

Please download the for full details of NHS 24 and this opportunity as well as the which will support you in your application.

We recommend that prior to application candidates read all the information provided in the Job Pack as it contains much of the information about NHS 24 and this vacancy to support a successful application.

Our mission at NHS 24 is to create a workplace where everyone feels welcome, valued and part of the team. As an organisation that promotes inclusion, we celebrate difference, and we encourage everyone who joins us to be themselves at work.

We are progressing an Anti-Racism Action Plan, which builds on our existing equalities work, and this will help us to measure our progress towards becoming an anti-racist organisation.

NHS 24 is an equal opportunities employer committed to advancing equality and particularly welcomes applications from groups of people currently underrepresented within the workforce. We are a committed participant in the Disability Confident Leader Scheme and guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for our vacancies.

To work in the United Kingdom, there is a legal requirement for an individual to demonstrate that they have the relevant permission to work in the country. This permission is, without exception, granted by the UK Visa and Immigrations Service.

As part of the pre-employment checks for a preferred candidate, (Company Name - Subscribers only) Boards will check your entitlement to work in the UK. It can be evidenced through a number of routes including specific types of visas as well as EU settled and pre-settled status. To find out more about these routes of permission, please refer to the GOV.UK website here.

Please note that NHS 24 is NOT licensed to issue certificates of sponsorship under current UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) regulations. Applicants must have the right to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship to work with us.

It is ESSENTIAL that you have checked that you either already have an appropriate right to work in the UK or that the post would be eligible to be sponsored BEFORE submitting your application form.