Senior Clinical Psychologist

Go back Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust

Senior Clinical Psychologist The closing date is 04 November 2025

We are excited to offer a Senior Clinical Psychology post to join our newly funded Specialist Weight Management Service, which broadens our existing Bariatric Surgery Service offer. The post is full-time (37.5 hours), fixed term for 2 years from the successful candidate's start date. We are hopeful that extension of this will be funded, although this cannot be guaranteed.

This vacancy forms part of significant investment to expand our existing Tier 4 Bariatric Surgery Service to a broader Specialist Weight Management Service. This role is anticipated to work across all arms of the pathway covering specialist weight management, weight-loss injections and bariatric surgery routes. The Specialist Weight Management Service currently consists of Dietetic, Surgical, Nursing, Endocrinology, Co-ordinator and Secretarial roles along with Clinical Psychology.

You will be joining an existing Clinical Psychology service led by a Principal Clinical Psychologist and supported by a Clinical Psychologist. We regularly offer training placements to doctoral clinical psychology students and this will be a part of the successful candidate's role. The service sits within an expanding Department of Clinical Health Psychology, with a culture founded in compassion, respect and support.

Clinical supervision will be provided by the clinical lead for the Bariatric Surgery Psychology Service, with line management provided within the Clinical Health Psychology Department.

Main duties of the job To provide a specialist Clinical Psychology service to adult patients with health conditions at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust.

To work as an integral member of both the Clinical Health Psychology Department and the multidisciplinary team to provide specialist psychological assessment, formulation, therapy and support patients. This requires taking full professional responsibility and exercising autonomous judgement, in matters of professional practice.

Offer advice and consultation on patients' psychological care and functioning to colleagues and other non-professional carers.

To initiate and take part in service development and use research skills for audit and policy development.

To work closely with specialist nurses and medical staff and provide supervision, teaching and training, and consultation to the team.

Work autonomously in the execution of these duties and within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Clinical Health Psychology Department and Trust policies and procedures.

About us CHFT is an integrated Trust of 6,500+ colleagues providing hospital and community services to patients and communities across Calderdale and Kirklees. We are rated as 'Good' by the Care Quality Commission, are a top performing Trust for Elective Recovery, Emergency and Cancer Care and widely acknowledged as a national digital lead when it comes to caring for people across our local and regional systems.

Our people are at the core of everything we do, hence our commitment to One Culture of Care. Our focus is to care for and support each other in order to provide outstanding compassionate care to our patients. That is why we are looking for an inclusive collaborative, creative, innovative and compassionate leader to join us in this role.

Job responsibilities The postholder will be expected to fulfil the following:-

Clinical Duties

• To provide a specialist Clinical Psychology service to patients as part of the multidisciplinary team(s)
• To undertake a range of evidenced-based psychological interventions, drawing on a range of psychological models and employing a range of modalities (individual and family) adapted and tailored to the needs of the individual and the context and the ongoing evaluation of the outcomes of the intervention.
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of the patients condition, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of their difficulties, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
• To establish rapport and build effective working relationships with patients and all those involved in their psychological, emotional and behavioural well-being.
• To evaluate and make specialist decisions about psychological treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual and/or family.
• To ensure accurate clinical and audit records are maintained.
• To respect diversity. To treat everyone with dignity and respect and act in ways that acknowledge and recognise peoples expressed beliefs, preferences and choices.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual patients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To communicate complex and potentially contentious information in a skilled and sensitive manner, in situations with patients who may be highly emotional, requiring the highest level of communication skills.
• To identify, provide and promote appropriate interventions / means of support for parents or carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and challenging behaviours.
• To carry individual accountability for all clinical decisions and exercise responsibility and autonomy for the treatment and discharge of patients, ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and treatment, communicating with the referral agent, members of the multidisciplinary team and others involved with the patients care.
• To provide highly specialist psychological guidance and consultation to patients, their carers and families and also with other Allied Health Professionals who are directly involved with the care of individuals.
• To follow appropriate local Safeguarding Adults and Children policies in all clinical work, including close liaison with all relevant agencies.
• To maintain up to date knowledge of national and local policies.
• Uphold the privacy and dignity of the patient and respect the equality of patients at all times.

Professional Duties

• To implement and work within the framework of departmental and Trust wide policies, procedures and guidelines.
• To maintain registration with the Health & Care Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist
• To work within the Code of Ethics and the relevant professional practice guidelines of the HCPC, the British Psychological Society and the professional guidance framework of the Trust.
• To seek and maintain regular formal supervision as a method of quality assurance on own casework and that of professional colleagues in the department.
• To seek high quality learning opportunities to meet continuing professional development requirements.
• To have completed recognised professional training in clinical supervision
• To be responsible for relevant data collection on work activities, as required, and to maintain a high standard of clinical record keeping, providing regular and timely information on work undertaken and on service activity to allow accurate reporting of the overall service to their manager.
• To participate fully in supporting the activities of long-term conditions services within the geographical remit, including attending relevant meetings.
• To participate fully in supporting the activities of the Clinical Psychology profession within the Trust, including attending relevant meetings
• To continue to develop psychological expertise through Continuing Professional Development, including service specific professional development.
• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.
• To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to the specific patient group, mental health, clinical psychology and health psychology in general.
• To undertake other duties as required for the effective delivery of the service. To carry out such other duties as the Clinical Lead for the Clinical Health Psychology Department may reasonably request.
• To assist in determining priorities and developing service provision within existing and across potential clinical areas.
• To use theory, evidence-based literature, and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
• To participate in the evaluation of the service by initiating, designing and implementing service-related audit, research and evaluation projects ensuring the incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high-quality care.
• To participate in the routine collection of patient data for purposes of outcome evaluation
• To remain informed of and critically evaluate current research to support evidence-based practice in own professional work and to contribute this perspective in the multi-disciplinary team.
• To undertake appropriate research and audit and provide research advice to other staff as requested.
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