Counselling Psychologist (XR08)

Wehave an exciting full time opportunity to work as a Senior Clinical Psychologist or Counselling Psychologist in Staff Psychological Supportat Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, to provide an extremely important andvalued Staff Psychological Support Service to Adult Critical Care. Staffwithin Critical Care are exposed to distressing events on a regular basis, aswell as facing the usual demands of working in in the NHS. StaffPsychological Support has been well established in Adult Critical Care sincethe COVID19 pandemic, with staff being enthusiastic and welcoming ofpsychological approaches to staff wellbeing.

Thesuccessful candidate will work alongside another psychologist, inconsultation with leaders in Critical Care, to offer a range of individual,group and service level interventions to respond to the needs of theworkforce. The post holder will also be supported by the Trust Wide StaffPsychological Support team.

Thepost is advertised as a Band 8a position, however we would consider a Band 7preceptorship post for the right candidate. Please indicate in yourapplication if you are interested in a Band 7 to 8a preceptorship. Inaddition we value and support staff work life balance and therefore part timehours will be considered.

Expected ShortlistingDate

14/10/2025

Planned InterviewDate

21/10/2025

Main duties of the job Thepost offers an excellent opportunity to gain experience in the field of StaffSupport and to develop a variety of skills, working with leaders within theTrust to provide an effective Staff Support service. Adult Critical Care isbased across both St James Hospital and Leeds General Infirmary. A visiblepresent and across site working is needed to promote the Staff PsychologicalSupport service and engage staff.

Thesuccessful candidate will provide individual level support to staff memberswithin Adult Critical Care, as well as consultation for leaders. There willbe opportunities to facilitate reflective practice and to develop bespokeformulation driven team interventions and training. In addition, the postholder will support the post event support pathway within Adult CriticalCare, developing the pathway and facilitating individual and group debriefsfollowing distressing events at work.

About us TheLeeds Teaching Hospitals Trust is a large organisation and Adult CriticalCare has a large workforce of over 600 staff. Importantly they areenthusiastic about supporting staff, and engaged with psychologicalapproaches to wellbeing. As such they are welcoming and keen to work with apsychologist to continue to provide staff support services.

Inaddition, the wider Staff Psychological Support service is made up ofPsychologists, Counsellors, Assistant Psychologists and TraineesPsychologists, which sits within the large Clinical and Health PsychologyDepartment. The department is extremely welcoming and supportive, with abreadth of experience and skills, with strong links to the regional clinicaltraining programme.

LeedsTeaching Hospitals is committed to our process of redeploying 'at risk'members of our existing workforce to new roles. As such, all our job advertsare subject to this policy and we reserve the right to close, delay or removeadverts while this process is completed. If you do experience a delay in theshortlisting stage of the recruitment cycle, please bear with us while thisprocess is completed, and contact the named contact if you have anyquestions.

Job responsibilities PLEASESEE FULL JOB DESCRIPTION AND PERSON SPECIFICATION ATTACHED

JOBPURPOSE/SUMMARY

Toprovide a qualified Clinical or Counselling Psychology service to NHS staffmembers and teams, across all sites and sectors of care by:

a) Providing highly specialistpsychological assessment and interventions,

b) Offering advice and consultation onservice users psychological wellbeing needs

c) Using research skills for audit,policy and service development and leading on research projects within thearea served by the team/service

d) Working autonomously in the executionof these duties and within professional guidelines and the overall frameworkof the Psychology Teams, Department and Trust policies and procedures.

PRINCIPALDUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Clinical:

1. To provide specialist psychologicalassessments based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration ofcomplex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests,self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observationsand semi-structured interviews with staff members and appropriate others.

2. To formulate, develop and implementplans for psychological interventions to address staff member and teamwellbeing, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of presentingneeds, and employing evidence-based methods.

3. To be responsible for implementing arange of psychological interventions within and across teams employedindividually and in systems, adjusting and refining psychologicalformulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining anumber of provisional hypotheses.

4. To evaluate and make decisions aboutintervention options taking into account both theoretical and therapeuticmodels and highly complex factors concerning historical, systemic anddevelopmental processes that have shaped the individual or group.

5. To exercise autonomous professionalresponsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users.

6. To provide specialist psychologicaladvice, guidance and consultation to other professionals and stakeholders,contributing directly to staff members mental health and workplacewellbeing.

7. To contribute directly and indirectlyto a psychological understanding of staff members and teams occupationalwellbeing needs.

8. To undertake risk assessment and riskmanagement for individual service users and to provide advice to otherprofessions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

9. To act as care co-ordinator, whereappropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of careplans under enhanced CPA (or its equivalent in the acute physical health caresetting) including patients, their carers referring agents and othersinvolved in the network of care.

10. To communicate in a skilled andsensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation andintervention plans of service users under their care and to monitor progressduring the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Teaching,training, and supervision

1. To receive regular clinicalprofessional supervision from a more senior clinical/counselling psychologistand, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues

2. To gain additional highly specialistexperience and skills relevant to clinical/counselling psychology and theservice (as agreed with the Lead Psychologist and Head of Department) up totwo sessions per week.

3. To develop skills in the area ofprofessional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to providesupervision to other MDT staffs psychological work as appropriate.

4. To provide professional and clinicalsupervision of doctoral trainee and graduate/ assistant psychologists.

5. To contribute to the pre- andpost-qualification teaching of clinical, health and/or counsellingpsychology, as appropriate.

6. To provide advice, consultation andtraining to staff working across a range of agencies and settings, whereappropriate.

Management,recruitment, policy and service development

1. To contribute to the development,evaluation and monitoring of the team, specialty and department operationalpolicies and services, through the deployment of professional skills inresearch, service evaluation and audit.

2. To advise both the service and theLead Psychologist on those aspects of the service where psychological and/ororganisational matters need addressing.

3. To manage the workloads of assistantgraduate psychologists and doctoral trainee clinical psychologists, withinthe framework of the team/specialty and Department policies and procedures.

4. To be involved, as appropriate, inthe short listing and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists.

Researchand service evaluation:

1. To utilise theory, evidence-basedliterature and research to support evidence based practice in individual workand work with other team members.

2. To undertake, as a major component ofthe post, appropriate research and provide research advice to other staffundertaking research, and to disseminate appropriate material viapresentation and publication.

3. To lead on research projects withinthe area served by the team/service.

4. To undertake project management,including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within theservice to help develop service provision.

5. To provide appropriate researchsupervision of doctoral trainees and graduate assistant psychologists.

Person Specification Experience

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in-patient settings.
• variety of patient groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism
• Experience of teaching, training and supervision.
• Experience of working in medical multi-disciplinary teams and offering systemic interpretations to have impact on the team functioning in patient care.
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