Burns Unit Principal Psychologist - #1722276

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Job Overview

A vacancy has arisen for a part time Principal Psychologist to join the Adult Burns Unit MDT. The post holder with provide psychological expertise for in-patients and out patients under the care of the burns MDT, contributing specialist assessment and interventions, joint care planning with other MDT members, contributing strategic and operational input for service developments and, as the lead specialist for burns, represent NBT to external bodies including contributing to the work of the Regional Burns Network and other specialty-related consultation processes at a regional/national level.

Southmead Hospital is one of the most modern acute facilities in Europe and hosts the Major Trauma Centre for adults serving a large proportion of the geographical population in the SW of England. The post holder is part of a thriving group of psychologists who work in the ASCR division of NBT and approximately 70 colleague working as psychological practitioners in Southmead Hospital. There are close links with the Doctoral Training Scheme in Clinical Psychology based at University of Bath, research links with all local universities, teaching and training responsibilities, and the post holder supervises both trainees and junior members of qualified staff.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder is the lead psychologist in a highly specialist burns and plastic surgery unit serving a large portion of the SW of England. The work involves a high degree of clinical autonomy in the development and delivery of psychological interventions, closely integrated with rest of the burns MDT. The work involves the capability and flexibility to adapt to changing demands and circumstances where input presents new and unexpected clinical challenges that demand an innovative approach. The post holder, as the psychology lead in a highly specialist burns MDT, also represents our unit in contributing to both regional and national networks. The burns psychologist also contributes to the regional post-graduate clinical psychology training programme. The post holder coordinates acute care in-patient services in liaison with leads in other areas, as a senior practitioner within an innovative and thriving psychology team based in one of Europe's most modern acute hospitals and a regional centre for trauma care.

Working for our organisation

North Bristol NHS Trust employs over 12,000 staff providing healthcare to the residents of Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset from our award-winning hospital building at Southmead. We are the regional Major Trauma Centre, and an internationally recognised centre of excellence in a range of services and major specialities. Our vision is that by enabling our teams to be the best that they can be, we will provide exceptional healthcare, personally delivered.

North Bristol NHS Trust values all people as individuals. We aim to be an anti-discriminatory organisation and are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We welcome applicants from all underrepresented groups.

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

• The post-holder is the lead psychologist in a highly specialist burns and plastic surgery unit serving a large portion of the SW of England.
• The work involves a high degree of clinical autonomy in the development and delivery of psychological interventions, closely integrated with rest of the burns MDT.
• The work involves the capability and flexibility to adapt to changing demands and circumstances where input presents new and unexpected clinical challenges that demand an innovative approach. 
• The post holder, as the psychology lead in a highly specialist burns MDT, also represents our unit in contributing to both regional and national networks.
• The burns psychologist contributes to the regional post-graduate clinical psychology training programme.
• The post holder leads the multi-disciplinary research evaluation of Virtual Reality technology for reducing pain and distress of patients during debridement and dressing changes. As such the post holder has management responsibility for all aspects of this research and line management responsibilities for the Assistant Psychologist.
• The post holder coordinates acute care in-patient services in liaison with leads in other areas, as a senior practitioner within an innovative and thriving psychology team based in one of Europe's most modern acute hospitals and a regional centre for trauma care.
• The role therefore involves:
• Undertaking specialist psychological assessments and interventions with individuals and their families who are admitted to the Burns Unit at Southmead Hospital. 
• Co-ordinating the delivery of care through weekly MDT care planning meetings, observing all relevant service standards in the provision of interventions, linking with refers and others. This involves liaison, supervision, and consultancy to other health professionals, working with in-patients and out-patients. 
• Liaising with other psychology lead in ASCR division undertaking operational management, coordinating in-patient care pathways within the division.
• Providing specialist supervision to trainee Clinical Psychologists on placement from regional doctoral training courses, coordinating the provision of placements with the organisation of psychologists across NBT.
  
  

Ensuring continual improvement of quality and safety in all aspects of patient care. This involves taking a lead role for implementing new policies and innovations that impact the practices of the whole MDT and other professionals. This is spread to other NHS professionals whose work with burns patients precedes or follows treatment in the burns unit. Examples of this include trauma-informed practice at frontline emergency care settings; the management of acute pain and delirium; and the primary care screening of late onset severe psychological distress after discharge from the burns unit

• Fully qualified as a practitioner psychologist with a doctorate degree and associated professional status in clinical psychology (or its equivalent) recognised by the Health and Care Professions Council (HPCC) and the British Psychological Society (BPS) Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP).  
• Registered with the HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• A depth of knowledge and professional experience working with people with traumatic injuries, complex pain conditions, and MDT work in an acute hospital setting.
• Depth of experience with evidence-based psychological models and therapeutic approaches to health and illness, (e.g., Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Trauma-focused CBT, EMDR, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) relevant to acute traumatic injury.
• Knowledge and experience of establishing, developing, and closing therapeutic relationships with individuals, relatives, and groups. 
• Knowledge of the evidence base for psychological assessment, interpretation, rationale for intervention, and outcome evaluation strategies, as applied to the field of clinical health psychology, reflecting up-to-date knowledge of clinical guidance and relevant clinical research literature. 
• Experience of communicating sensitive and complex information, both verbal and written, where such information is difficult to convey, (e.g. explaining the complexities and relevance of complex family dynamics or differing reactions to distressing events in care planning).
• Substantial experience of teaching at post-graduate level clinical psychology training and for other health professions.
• Knowledge of psychometric scale development, use and evaluation within physical health settings and experience in the collection, analysis, and dissemination of audit and clinical data.
• Knowledge of IT systems for clinical, training, and research purposes including Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint
• Knowledge and experience of user involvement and equality of opportunity issues and their relevance to this specialist area.
• Experience of the clinical assessment of psychological functioning, cognitive abilities, mental health needs and capacity for therapeutically supported change using a range of strategies including clinical interview, patient reported outcome measures, and evaluation of information from other sources.
  
  

Skills Required

• To communicate in a highly sensitive and skilled manner sensitive information to /with staff members and colleagues in a compassionate and effective way, for example where there are high levels of distress, psychological risk, anger, or where barriers to self-care exist.
• Ability to contain and work therapeutically with people in extreme psychological distress including depressive withdrawal, anger, suicidality, anxiety / panic, loss and bereavement, relationship breakdown. To help other staff manage these issues in practice.
• Ability to put psychological theory into practice in novel and complex clinical settings, synthesising data, and theory from a range of evidence-based sources to create individual, group, team intervention plans.
• Ability to deliver training on psychological concepts in clinical settings at a variety of levels and to evaluate / audit training.
• Ability to evaluate and prioritise competing clinical demands and to use planned and ad hoc supervision as part of coping with these.
• Mobile to meet the requirements of the post.
• Initiative and flexibility.
• An important characteristic of the job responsibilities is that the post holder is autonomous and personally accountable for their clinical decisions. To this end it is a requirement that the post holder ensures an appropriate level of consultation/supervision is undertaken and that appropriate overall supervision arrangements are made in accordance with professional practice guidelines to support this high level of clinical responsibility.
  
  

Clinical, organisational, and leadership

• To provide high quality, specialist interventions for patients and their relatives
• To develop and deliver training and quality improvement programmes to support the psychology lead and to support an organisational culture of compassionate leadership.
• To build strong relationships with key stakeholders within the acute care setting and with related services
• To ensure outcome and service data is routinely collected, in line with service evaluation and clinical governance requirements.
• To provide clinical supervision to junior Practitioner Psychologist colleagues and have flexibility for cross-cover as may be required in exceptional circumstances.
• To be aware of and adhere to Trust and departmental policies and procedures and the professional practices for psychologists at NBT.
• To liaise with other disciplines and agencies working in the specialism to promote effective interventions and ensure best practice.
• To advise the clinical managers and others of any identified service gaps, risks, and other needs the need for change or adjustments, policy, protocol, guideline. Or activity, as appropriate.
• To agree a job plan and undertake performance review for professional development with the Line Manager, implementing the agreed plan for this on an annual cycle or more frequently as required.
• These duties and responsibilities will be regularly reviewed with the post holder and changes may be agreed over time.
  
  

Professional

• To maintain and further develop high standards of clinical psychology practice through co-operative work with clinical colleagues.
• To adhere to the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) regulations required as a registered Practitioner Psychologist, and to fully observe the BPS Code of Conduct and the DCP Professional Practice Guidelines
• To adhere to any professional guidance from the British Psychological Society, Department of Health, and the Trust, with particular reference to informed consent, note-taking, confidentiality, information sharing and safeguarding.
• To undertake regular clinical supervision in line with NBT and professional practice guidance.
• To engage with the appraisal process, continuing professional development, essential training, and clinical supervision, as required by the Trust and the HCPC.
• To attend and actively participate in professional and clinical speciality meetings, and to keep the team updated with key issues, updates, developments, and risks.
• To provide cover within Clinical Health Psychology as may be needed in exceptional circumstances.
• To be aware of and comply with all policies, guidelines, and directives within this Trust with regard to professional and clinical governance, and to contribute to policy and service development and implementation at Trust, national levels as relevant and indicated.
• To be aware of and comply with legislation, guidance, training pertaining to safeguarding, relevant national standards, and NICE guidance.
  
  

Person specification

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

Essential criteria

• UK Post-graduate doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology, Counselling Psychology, or Psychotherapist, British Psychological Society accredited or with a BPS statement of Equivalence
• Registration with the HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist
• Extensive NHS experience of clinical practice (more than 4 years) in an acute care setting encompassing trauma and long-term conditions
• Experience of effective multi-disciplinary team working in a relevant acute care setting
• Advanced communication skills relevant to this service setting
• Knowledge of legislation/guidance re safeguarding, confidentiality, consent, clinical governance of psychological services
• Able to build and maintain effective working relationships with service users where these are complex and challenging
• Able to build and maintain effective collaborative working relationships with MDT colleagues and service managers
• Able to prioritise and manage competing demands on time and resources in circumstances where demand exceeds capacity
• Substantial experience of clinical supervision of post-doctoral level psychologists and other health professionals applying psychological interventions in health care
  
  

Desirable criteria

• Formal training in supervision of practitioner psychologists and other NHS professionals
• Post-doctoral training in trauma-focused psychological interventions
• Post qualification training in service management relevant to this post
• Experience of managing a service or sector of service including representing that service in liaison with senior managers and external organisations
• Experience of teaching/training doctoral; and post-doctoral level psychologists in an acute care setting
• Knowledge of NICE guidance and other standards relevant to this service setting
• Evidence of successfully working in an ambassadorial capacity representing a service, the profession, or the organisation, across service and cultural boundaries
• Evidence of collaborative working with service users regarding evaluation, improvement and evolution of service provision
• Evidence of skilled effective leadership in a work context, relevant to this role, that combines clinical, operational, and strategic aspects of service provision
• Able to demonstrate realistic awareness and management of the personal impact of work-related stress inherent in this specialist area and job role
  
  

If you apply for this vacancy and have not received a communication from North Bristol NHS Trust within three weeks of the closing date, please assume that on this occasion your application has been unsuccessful.

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North Bristol NHS Trust are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

The successful applicant(s) will normally commence at the minimum of the scale unless they have previous NHS service at the same band. Progression through the scale is by annual increments.

At North Bristol Trust (NBT), we know diverse and inclusive environments lead to happier and healthier teams and improved patient care and outcomes. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are currently underrepresented in NBT’s workforce at Band 8a and above. These include people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, disabled people and LGBTQIA+ people.

Please note that stringent pre-employment checks are undertaken on all successful applicants prior to commencement in post.