Principal Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

Looking for a new job for 2025 in a fabulous city?  We have an opportunity to join the Sheffield Memory Service (SMS) as the lead psychologist.  This is a permanent 8b role (0.6wte) within SMS which is an MSNAP accredited memory service.  The successful applicant will join the psychology team at SMS (qualified, assistants and trainees) and will be an integral part of the wider MDT.  This is an exciting time to work in SMS and to lead some organisational change and developments as part of the wider Older Adult Community Mental Health Transformation programme.

Neuropsychology assessment is a well-established pathway within SMS and there may be the opportunity to undertake postgraduate clinical neuropsychology training.

As part of the Older Adult and Neurological Conditions (OA&NC) psychology department you will have access to strong psychology support and leadership. The OA&NC department are a group of psychologists working into a range of settings (older adult mental health, dementia, stroke, brain injury, long term neurological conditions), allowing you access to a wealth of experience (CBT accredited supervisors, neuropsychology supervision, EMDR trained psychologists).

Main duties of the job

• To provide a qualified specialist clinical psychology service to service users of Sheffield Memory Service (SMS). To provide specialist diagnostic neuropsychological assessment.  To offer highly specialised advice and consultation on service users’ psychological care to psychologist & non-psychologist colleagues alike, and to non-professional (informal) carers.
• To provide highly specialist diagnostic neuropsychological assessments of service users referred to SMS, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and psychometric tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with service users, family members and others involved in the person’s care.
• To formulate and share SMS care plans, in diagnostic feedback appointments, to identify the relevant treatment and/or management of a service user’s problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the person’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across a full range of care settings.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see Job Description and Person Specification for further information

Clinical

To provide highly specialist diagnostic neuropsychological assessments of service users referred to SMS, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and psychometric tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with service users, family members and others involved in the person’s care.

To formulate and share SMS care plans, in diagnostic feedback appointments, to identify the relevant treatment and/or management of a service user’s problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the person’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across a full range of care settings.

To work on a daily basis in face-to-face individual, family and/or in group therapy settings with service users presenting with highly complex and sometimes distressing psychological problems.

To be responsible for implementing an appropriate range of specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of different provisional hypotheses.

To evaluate and make decisions about neuropsychological assessment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning cultural, historical, developmental processes and acquired disabilities that have shaped the individual, family or group.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals (both psychologists and non-psychologists) contributing directly to service users’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plans.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all users of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the service user group.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

To coordinate, where appropriate, complex intervention plans, taking responsibility for initiating planning and reviews of plans, and including service users, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service users under their care and to monitor progress during both the course of uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Teaching, Training and Supervision

To receive regular clinical professional supervision in accordance with professional practice (HCPC), BPS and Trust guidelines

To provide supervision to other MDT staff’s (neuro)psychological work, as appropriate.

To provide supervision for trainee clinical psychologists.

To provide clinical supervision to less experienced qualified clinical psychologists, assistant(s), or other professionals.

To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology.

To provide highly specialised advice, consultation and training to staff (including both psychologists and non-psychologists) working with the service user group across a range of agencies and settings.

Management, Recruitment, Policy, Organisational and Service Development

To significantly contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of aspects of the team’s clinical practice through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.

To co-ordinate the systematic governance of psychological practice within their own team by developing and collecting relevant measures of outcome and audit, and to provide consultation to other health and social care professionals to enable them to develop their own effective systems of governance.

To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and / or organisational matters need addressing.

To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of Assistant Psychologists.

To line-manage the work of qualified & assistant psychologists within the framework of the team / service’s policies and procedures.

To co–ordinate and organise of the work of other psychologists and other clinical members of the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment. To be responsible for monitoring and co-ordinating psychology resources available to SMS by responding to referrals, making autonomous professional and clinical judgements based upon complex information, prioritising accordingly and contributing to multidisciplinary decision making. To manage any waiting lists and participate as a senior clinician in the allocation of cases taking into account skill mix and caseload.

To implement the policies and propose changes to working practices/procedures concerning professional good practice for the provision of psychological services as applicable to LTNC in particular in order to ensure the highest standards of service to the service user group.

To propose policy or service changes which impact beyond own area of activity by participation in Trust working parties and other local development groups.

Research and Service Evaluation

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

To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.

To supervise DClinPsy research projects.

To supervise the research activities of Assistant Psychologists.

To initiate, undertake and supervise project management, service evaluations and complex audits with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

To disseminate research findings through publications and conference presentations.