Principal Psychotherapist

Id Job: 316a314

🏢 On-site

💼 Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

📍 London, England

🕒 2 days ago

💰 55903 – 61996 GBP ANNUAL

Job Description

We are looking for a dynamic and experienced psychotherapist to join the team at Westminster Psychotherapy Service. You will be a senior member of the Service (alongside a part-time Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy and a part-time Band 8B Senior Principal Psychotherapist), providing clinical, supervisory and training input as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and contribute to the further development of the Service.

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.

Working as a Principal Psychotherapist, within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Service’s policies and procedure
Ensuring the systematic provision of high-quality specialist psychodynamically informed therapies to patients within the integrated Westminster Community Mental Health Hubs.
Providing specialist assessments and treatment of patients with severe and complex needs in groups and/or individually using psychodynamically informed treatment method
Providing a specialist clinical case consultation to Hubs, GPs, or other local health and social care agencies as required
Providing specialist supervision in individual and group psychotherapy to qualified and honorary staff, as well as psychiatry trainees.
Facilitating and maintaining a strong audit and research culture in the promotion of service and policy development.
Engage in partnership working with other therapies and non-therapies staff within Hubs, to design and deliver clinical interventions.
Contribute to the development of the service through liaison, representation in local and Trust-wide meetings, collaboration with other disciplines, teaching and training, audit, and research, within the Trust.

The Service offers a range of brief and long term, individual and group treatments: Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Mentalization Based Treatment (MBT), Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) and Interpersonal Group Psychotherapy (IGP). MBT, DIT and IGP are recommended treatments under the NHS England Psychological Therapies for Severe Mental Health Problems (PT-SMHP) Implementation Guidance. The Service works closely with the Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) Pathway, and ispart of the wider Westminster Hub Integrated Therapies operating within the Westminster Community Mental Health Hubs.

All staff within the Service engage in partnership working with other therapies and non-therapies staff within the Hubs, to develop and to deliver interventions. There is also expectation of working to support GPs within the local Primary Care Networks. The Psychotherapy Service is a single service that serves patients across the Westminster Hubs.

The Service staffing consists of 0.6WTE Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy (Service Lead), 0.4WTE Band 8b Senior Prinicipal Psychotherapist, 0.6WTE Band 8a Principal Psychotherapist (this post), 1.0WTE Band 7 Psychodynamic Psychotherapist, 0.5WTE Core Psychiatry Trainee. The Service has responsibilities in offering psychotherapy training experience to trainee psychiatrists, and a number of honorary therapists who deliver treatment under supervision of senior members of the Service.

Informal enquiries are welcome.

Interview date: TBC

Key Result Areas

Clinical Responsibilities
1. Be responsible for the treatment of patients with complex and challenging mental health difficulties. This includes managing difficult emotional situations with sensitivity, skill and an understanding of unconscious processes.

1. Undertake comprehensive and highly specialised consultations and assessments of referred clients based upon knowledge, understanding, the integration of psychoanalytic concepts and evidence-based practice, and the range of treatments available. Such assessments will involve the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources (e.g. referral information, background history, liaison with other teams and agencies, CPA and risk documentation, electronic records, patient questionnaires)

1. Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options, to communicate the outcome of assessments, including recommendations on:

1. whether psychotherapy is an appropriate treatment;
2. when psychotherapy is deemed the treatment of choice, a care plan that recommends a mode of treatment for the Psychotherapy Service to deliver (individual/group, MBT, DIT, interpersonal group psychotherapy, or individual psychodynamic psychotherapy)
3. patient/therapist matching (gender, level of experience);
4. risk profile and formulation;
5. future management, input and treatment.
6. Discuss complex assessments in the weekly Psychotherapy Clinical Meeting
7. Manage independently and autonomously a clinical caseload of group and individual patients, including patients with severe and complex needs who may require more long-term psychotherapeutic input.
8. Communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner with patients and mental health professionals in relation to all aspects of the post holder’s work, including advisory and support services.

Clinical Supervision, Training and Teaching

1. Provide clinical supervision in small groups (for both individual and group treatments, if appropriately qualified) for clinicians employed within the service, psychiatry trainees, and honorary psychotherapists, as required.

1. To offer clinical supervision and advice to other mental health professionals working within the Community Mental Health Hubs who are treating individual patients or conducting groups.

1. Plan, organise, and lead other teaching and training activities of the Service.

1. To participate in peer supervision meetings for staff in the Service and regularly present his/her clinical work. This is to ensure that the post holder is professionally supported in his/her work given the complexity of patients and the anxiety, intense feelings and actual risks the work entails.
2. To participate in organising and overseeing clinical placements in the Service for honorary therapists who are interested in developing further knowledge in the application of psychodynamic psychotherapy and in delivering therapeutic interventions on behalf of the Service; to ensure honorary therapists acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to practice in a safe and effective manner as forensic psychodynamic practitioners on placement.

Consultation and Liaison
1. To liaise, as appropriate, as a senior representative of the Service, with clinicians and managers outside of the Service, with GPs, and other community agencies over clinical and other issues, especially pertaining to psychotherapy delivery and psychological aspects of care planning and case management.
2. Offer psychologically informed consultations within Community Mental Health Hubs and to GPs, making and refining formulations, drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses, that can be shared with other therapies or non-therapies staff, in order to assist in the psychological aspects of care planning.

Research, Service Development, and Management
1. To manage the work of the clinicians undertaking psychotherapy under the post holder’s supervision.

1. Regularly attend and fully participate in the relevant Business and Clinical meetings
2. To keep up-to-date with developments in the psychodynamically informed treatment of different mental health conditions including severe mental illness and personality disorder;

1. To utilise theory, current literature and research to support evidence-based practice in direct clinical work, and in supervision, teaching and consultations with other clinicians and staff groups.
2. To contribute as a senior member of the Service to the evaluation and monitoring of service delivery, including by participating in the systematic evaluation of assessments for psychotherapy, as well as treatment progress.

1. To take part in Business Meetings for the Service and participate in the development of a high-quality, responsive and accessible service including advising the Service and professional management on those aspects of where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

Clinical Governance
1. To participate in establishing and maintaining a clinical governance framework for the Service in collaboration with other members of the Service. More specifically:

1. To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the Service to help develop service provision;

1. To contribute actively to the development of policies improving the delivery of the service provided by the Service.

1. To engage in appraisal, CPD, risk assessment and risk management, and evidence-based practice.
1. To ensure British Psychanalytic Council (BPC) registration is maintained, complying with Continuing Professional Development requirements to maintain registration.
2. To participate fully in the Trust’s performance review and personal development planning process on an annual basis.

Working Relationships
1. To communicate clearly and effectively with referring clinicians and teams, as well as with members of the Service on matters relating to the clinical care of patients, to ensure that high standards of assessment and treatment are maintained and that the requirements of clinical governance are met.
2. Work with the Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy, Hub Managers, Psychology Lead, other Therapy Leads, Clinical Director, Borough Director, and managers within Westminster and the Trust, in formulating policies for the Service, in accordance with Trust policies and objectives.

1. Work with Pathway Leads and other staff within the Service, with regard to key service issues, service aims and objectives, service developments, and other managerial issues to ensure the effective operation of the service.
2. Liaise with and participate in the work of national bodies in the field of psychodynamic psychotherapy in order to remain familiar with developments in the field, to ensure that the highest standards of contemporary practice are adhered to, and to contribute to the promotion and development of dynamic psychotherapy services both locally and nationally.
3. Liaise with the service’s administrative staff, with regard to key service issues, service aims and objectives, service developments, and managerial issues to ensure that these matters are clearly understood and effectively realised.
4. Liaise and work with the Senior Managers in Westminster, and within the Trust to ensure that psychodynamic psychotherapy continues to make its contribution to the aims and objectives of the Trust and to promote the understanding of the psychoanalytic perspective.

Record Keeping and IT
1. To maintain accurate records, ensuring that clinical documentation is kept up-to-date and that reports are prepared in a timely fashion that takes account of confidentiality and risk assessment.

1. To use computer skills to summarise information using databases and to prepare reports using word processing packages.

General
1. To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the postholder’s professional and service manager(s).

1. To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

1. 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, The Health Professions Council and Trust policies and procedures.

1. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.

Additional notes:

This is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities, and the postholder may be required to undertake other duties which fall within the grade of the job, indiscussion with the manager.
This job description will be reviewed regularly in the light of changing service requirements and any such changes will be discussed with the post holder.
The post holder is expected to comply with all relevant Trust policies, procedures and guidelines, including those relating to Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety and Confidentiality of Information, clinical governance including research governance

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