Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Go back Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

The closing date is 05 December 2025

We would like to invite applicants for an exciting, new permanently funded position which provides the opportunity to lead and develop the psychological provision for the Psychiatric Liaison Service at Frimley Park Hospital.

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Psychiatric Liaison services provide high quality mental health care to working age and older adults across emergency departments and acute wards within the acute general hospitals. We are seeking an enthusiastic, innovative and committed person to develop this new role and to provide a range of evidence based assessments and interventions to people using the service. We are welcoming applicants from a range of clinical backgrounds, given the varied nature of liaison work.

As a Trust we pride ourselves on our innovative and collaborative approach to providing the highest quality, person centred care. We have a strong focus on staff development and support, with excellent leadership and clinical CPD offers both internally and through our relationships with academic institutions. The Health Service Journals coverage of our staff survey results identified the SABP as being in the top ten places to work, as recommended by staff.

All teams are accredited by the Psychiatric Liaison Accreditation network which ensures our commitment to offer best practice within liaison psychiatry services.

Main duties of the job

You will have a varied caseload with a wide range of working age and older adult clients presenting with both functional and/or organic problems across the hospital. As well as providing direct assessments and brief evidence based interventions, you will be working closely with the Liaison MDT and physical healthcare colleagues across the hospital, aiming to help embed psychological skills in the treatment of patients presenting in hospital wards and A&E.

In consultation with service leads, you will be responsible for developing the psychology offer within the hospital. You will be providing professional leadership and supervision to any Trainee Psychologists within the service. Working with other senior leaders you will be working to continually innovate and improve the service. You will receive clinical supervision from the Lead Consultant Clinical Psychologist for Psychiatric Liaison Services. It's an exciting time to join Psychiatric Liaison services, with psychology provision within such teams developing nationally.

About us

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is the leading provider of health and social care services for people of all ages with mental ill health and learning disabilities in Surrey and North East Hampshire. We also provide social care services for people with a learning disability in Croydon and ASD and ADHD assessment services in Hampshire.

We actively seek to engage people who use our services and our communities in improving the mental wellbeing of the local population. We work closely with other NHS and voluntary sector organisations who provide services and support people who use services and carers.

Surrey is a beautiful county lying just 30 minutes away from Central London and from the South Coast.

Our historic market towns and bustling districts are enveloped in wonderful countryside, and our excellent road and rail networks bring the rest of the country within easy reach.

For international travel, both Gatwick and Heathrow airports are nearby.

Please note that we reserve the right to close posts as soon as sufficient applications are received.

Working from home contracts do not attract high cost area payments.

We look forward to receiving your application!

Job responsibilities

Please see the attached Job description for the details of the post and the main responsibilities of the role.

Person Specification Qualifications

• Doctorate in Clinical or Counselling Psychology qualification or equivalent
• Completion of an appropriate clinical supervision course to enable supervision of trainees
• Additional academic clinical qualification relevant to area of work
• Additional leadership/management study

Experience

• Extensive post qualification clinical experience in relevant clinical setting
• Experience of leading in clinical practice, service development or project work
• Experience of supervising trainees, assistant psychologists, qualified clinical/counselling psychologists and others providing psychological therapies
• Experience of implementing change following audit and service evaluation
• Experience of advising other professionals on complex psycho logical issues and risk
• Experience of cognitive neuropsychological assessment and/or formulation
• Experience using applied psychology working in a physical health setting

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

£66,653 to £77,094 a year Incl. 5% Fringe HCAS, pa, pro rata.