Joining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for three consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

We are seeking to appoint a Principal Psychologist to join the Adult Autism team. The Psychologist should enjoy working with other professionals, have experience of active multidisciplinary participation and working to integrate psychological mindedness with assessment, formulation, and intervention as a core component of the post. This role will require knowledge, experience, and skills in triaging new patient referrals, neuropsychological assessment and diagnostics and clinical management of adults presenting on the Neurodevelopmental pathway. The post holder should have experience and a good understanding of cognitive factors impacting on recovery and rehabilitation.

The post holder will undertake service evaluation, audit, research, and policy development if required. They will work as an autonomous professional within HCPC and BPS guidelines and codes of conduct. He/she will be guided by principles, systems, and procedures of the service, taking responsibility for interpreting policies, within defined parameters in delivery of defined outcomes.

The post holder will have clinical expertise working psychologically within physical health care settings and/or neuropsychology settings. Experience is required in clinical assessment, interventions, and signposting. The postholder will manage one’s own caseload, undertake risk assessment/management and individual/group psychology programmes, within a timely and professional manner.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will support the autism team by:

Participating in the development and implementation of high standards of clinical care ensuring the service provided is needs led, compliant with national guidance and is viewed positively by service users. Contribute to the strategic development and transformation of Specialist Adult autism services in NELFT and maintenance of high-level quality of delivery of therapeutic provision across the borough. This includes improving the integration within specialist teams and across primary and secondary care. Deputise for the Deputy Director of Psychological Professions including complex clinical cases, leadership, line management and service development. Conduct high quality assessments, treatments and systematic outcome measurement in the specialist Autism care pathway. Support delivery of complex specialist psychological assessment, intervention and support service for service users referred within the specialist care pathway. Provide specialist consultation and clinical input to complex cases presenting with significant distress associated with autism with co-morbid psychosis, anxiety, mood disorders, such as depression, Forensic involvement and enduring difficulties that may have been given the diagnosis of ‘personality disorder’ across the directorate.

Working for our organisation

Starting with NELFT
NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop in sessions focusing in engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period. Internal applicants are exempt from the probationary period (unless you are an internal applicant currently part way through a probationary period or currently a bank member of staff). 

High Cost Area Supplement - London

This post attracts payment for High Cost Area Supplement of 15% of the basic salary (minimum payment of £4,551 and a maximum payment of £5,735 per annum pro rata).

Certificates of Sponsorship

Although we are a registered sponsor organisation, we are unable to offer sponsorship for all job roles. Please check your eligibility under the UKVI points based system. 

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

If you come and work as part of the NELFT Adult Autism team, your knowledge and skills will be valued. Come join NELFT named in 2021 as a ‘Working Families Top Ten Employer’ and Winner at the RIDI Awards for ‘Making a Difference – Public Sector’. 

Benefits to the postholder will be the offer of the following:

- Structured annual education, training, and development package through several funded clinical and non-clinical courses to support you through own career development and progression in your own career path

- Opportunity to learn and apply the latest research evidence in the field of autism

- Leadership, coaching and mentoring opportunities

- Flexible and Agile working

- Family friendly policies and procedures

- Substantial number of staff benefits

- Resources and support to your own health, emotion and wellbeing: 

Provide operational leadership in the specialist adult autism service to psychological practitioners working in the pathway and represent psychology at senior levels within the directorate, under the direction of and deputising for, the care pathway lead. This will be overseen by the Psychology leads, Deputy Director of Psychological Professions and Professional Lead for Adult Mental Health.

Provide clinical leadership and high-quality clinical supervision in the Specialist Autism care pathway, under the direction of the Professional Lead. This will typically involve the supervision of Band 7 and Band 8a colleagues and will also include overseeing the supervision of Assistant Psychologists and Clinical Associate Psychologists (CAPs), as appropriate. 

• Ensuring more junior colleagues in the pathway (such as Assistant Psychologists, Senior Clinical Psychologists) are working to a clear job plan and are receiving the operational and clinical supervision they require.

• Working in close collaboration with other psychology services to ensure a smooth pathway for service-users and their families, under the direction of the Professional Lead.

• Ensuring that a high quality, timely, accessible and evidence-based psychological service is available to all service users who need it, under the direction of the Professional Lead.

• Supporting the Professional Lead to establish and maintain excellent working relationships with wider mental health services ( Community Recovery Teams, Community Clinics) and services of all inpatient wards and home treatment teams.

• Supporting the Professional Lead to ensure adherence to evidence based psychological treatments by clinical staff within the specialist care pathway.

• Supporting consultation, supervision, teaching and training of staff working within the specialist care pathway and playing a key role in audit and evaluation.

• Supporting the Professional Lead to ensure the pathway offer is in line with NICE guidance and in line with expectations from professionals across the Trust and other agencies (including the Integrated Care System).

• Supporting the Professional Lead to evaluate the impact of any investment in the psychology service and providing relevant outcomes with regards to this investment (in collaboration with the Integrated Care Director for the Directorate).

• Auditing and evaluating within the specialist care pathway, under the direction of the Professional Lead. This will include reviewing people who do not engage with the service, and those who drop out, to identify ways of ensuring that the service is accessible and responsive to diverse needs.

• Supporting the provision of expert advice, consultation and support to the directorate and to community recovery and wider psychological services, who are referring clients within the specialist care pathway.

• Participating in directorate meetings as delegated by the Integrated Care Director, when deputising for the Professional Lead.

• Working autonomously within professional guidelines and within the overall framework of policies and procedures of the Trust.

• Providing specialist psychological assessments of service users, using interview, formal psychometric and other assessment methods as appropriate.

• Exercising autonomous professional responsibility for the psychological assessment and treatment of service users in accordance with the policies of the services.

• Providing specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals, to assist in the formulation, diagnosis and treatment of service users.

• Producing professional communications in a skilled and sensitive manner concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service users and their carers.

• Communicating with other health and social care staff, from a range of agencies, in the care provided to service users as necessary.

• Developing and maintaining relationships including consultation to relevant user groups and other organisations.

• Attending key directorate meetings to support the development of the pathway, to ensure there is a robust interface with other pathways within psychology and more broadly, to input into community transformation and to support the development of the whole pathway and patient journey from inpatient and crisis, through to community services and to primary care. 

• Using a broad theoretical knowledge base and specialist clinical skills to develop and support the psychological skills of practitioners via the development and delivery of teaching, training, supervision, support and consultation.

• Developing and maintaining a knowledge of local resources, and developing working relations with relevant statutory, voluntary and community groups, and organisations.

• Managing staff within the designated specialist care pathway. This will include day-to day operational management guidance and support to the team including supervision, performance management, monitoring service delivery and providing clinical leadership.

• Managing clinical resources within the specialist care pathway, highlighting solutions to capacity and proactively advising the assistant director where there are capacity problems, all under the guidance of the Care Pathway Lead.

• Supporting the Professional Lead in advising the Assistant Director in the directorate and the Deputy Director of Psychological Professions those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

• Recruiting qualified staff, trainees and / or assistant psychologists and managing their workloads within the framework of the Trust’s policies and procedures.

Ensuring that staff within the specialist care pathway work towards and maintain the Trust’s key performance indicators, agreed commissioner targets and other local and national guidance.

• Ensuring that best practice in assessment, risk assessment and care planning is always adhered to by staff within the specialist care pathway.

• Ensuring the development and maintenance of the highest personal standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holder’s professional and service manager.

• Maintaining the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance.

• To be responsible for organising and prioritising own and others workload in the day-to-day allocation of work. 

• To deputise when required in the Deputy Director of Psychological Professions absence and delegate appropriately. 

• To have organisational knowledge relating to Trust protocols and procedures and adhere to them, particularly administration of medicine and moving and handling. 

• To be responsible for providing accurate records of information required by the Trust for audit purposes. 

• To ensure effective risk management at team level by accident/incident reporting, assessing and controlling risk and ensuring residual risks are added to the Trust register. 

• To act as an autonomous, registered practitioner who is legally and professionally accountable for own unsupervised actions guided by the professional code of conduct and Trust guidelines and protocols. 

• The post holder will have professional HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist. 

• Further professional knowledge will have been gained through accredited courses workshops, study and in house training programmes. 

• To be responsible, and accountable, for service delivery to clients/patients and their carers. 

• To be able to assess and develop plans of care to meet the complex needs of patients with Autism. This includes chronic, and acute care within own competencies, recognising own limitations and seeking advice when necessary. This will include continuously evaluating and acting on outcomes. 

• To show skill and experience in the management of complex clinical risk, including triage and safely managing and signposting to necessary services.

• To be able to initiate referrals to other health professional specialist services and agencies. 

• To provide patients and relatives with information and education thus ensuring they have meaningful choices that promote dignity, independence and quality of life. 

• To ensure practice is supported by research, evidence-based practice, literature and peer review. 

Use of AI

Applications for this role should be written by the applicant. If artificial intelligence (AI) programmes are used then the application may be rejected due to this document being an important part of the assessment process. This does not prevent applicants seeking appropriate support with applications should they need to for the purposes of any declared disability.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

Post-graduate qualification in clinical or counselling psychology Additional specialist post-graduate training relevant to this population ( ADOS, AAA, modified therapy for autism etc) /Research in this field Additional specialist training in neurodiverse focused interventions ( Narrative Exposure Therapy, EMDR etc) or in Neuropsychology Professional registration with the appropriate body ( HCPC) as Practitioner Psychologist

Experience

Essential criteria

A thorough knowledge of evidence based clinical practice and a commitment to keeping abreast of new evidence-based practice developments in psychology and those specific to Adult Autism Experience of working with high levels of risk and severe mental health difficulties Experience of applying NICE compliant therapies relevant to the target population ( CBT-modified, Anxiety and depression, CBT or DBT for personality disorders, Therapy for Depression, Extensive knowledge and experience with working with safeguarding issues, issues concerning forensic risk and highly complex mental health problems

Knowledge

Essential criteria

Expert knowledge of evidence based psychological treatments for autism Well-developed knowledge and skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing,

Skills

Essential criteria

An ability to work autonomously, setting appropriate goals, in accordance with professional ethics guidelines and Trust policies Ability to manage working in situations of conflict and with multiple sources of stress.

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff. A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our effortsto support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’ from the Working Families Charity. Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors. Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.