Job Advert
18.75 hours per week - salary will be pro rata
NHS Lothian is committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our workforce, and eliminating unlawful discrimination. The aim is for our workforce to be truly representative and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best.
To this end, NHS Lothian welcomes applications from all sections of society.
***PLEASE NOTE: We cannot accept late applications so please ensure your application is submitted early***
Please note: As this post is part-time the salary will be pro-rata.
The Lothian Older People's Psychology Service (LOPPS) provides a highly specialist clinical psychology service across the NHS Lothian area to adults predominantly aged 65 and over.
This permanent Band 8a 0.5 wte post is based within the Edinburgh City Health and Social Care Partnership, aligned to our Edinburgh North East locality Older People’s Community Mental Health Team. The post holder will join another part time Band 8a Clinical Psychologist and will be administratively based at the OP-CMHT base. The locality also has sessional input from a LOPPS Clinical Associate in Applied Psychology. They will have access to the LOPPS dedicated central administrative team.
Supported by the Professional Lead and Senior Clinical Psychologist, and jointly with the other Locality Clinical Psychologist and LOPPS team members, the post holder will locally lead the development and provision of a specialist psychology service to older people, their caregivers and families in the defined Sector/Locality area and to take responsibility and leadership as the Psychology representative in the MDT. This post holder will provide clinical supervision and support in relation to the psychological assessment, therapy and interventions provided by newly qualified and trainee psychologists, multi disciplinary clinicians and staff within the designated clinical area. You would be responsible for the management of a specialist caseload and appropriate allocation of caseload to other members of the Locality team. There will be delegated responsibilities for providing psychology teaching, training, consultancy and supervision activities management within a governance structure in addition to undertaking audit and research relevant to the service area.
Psychology is now a well-established component of the service to older people in the local area and the additional resource for this post is reflective of the demand for, and value of, psychological assessment, intervention and consultation within the MDT. The post holder’s caseload will have breadth and variety and there are significant opportunities to utilise and develop skills and competencies in neuropsychological assessment, complex therapeutic casework and co-working with the multidisciplinary team. There are ongoing developments aiming to support training and supervision of psychological interventions in areas such as Stress & Distress at home, trauma informed care, structured low intensity interventions and use of team formulations. LOPPS team members have participated in a range of internal and service quality improvement projects, working collectively with colleagues. Qualified team members have access to both individual supervision and a group supervision programme. We routinely host both core and elective Doctoral clinical training placements in addition to offering supervision and support to Thesis and small scale research projects. We have recently had Ethical and R&D approval to commence routine neuropsychological assessment data collection for clinical research purposes. LOPPS has sessional Psychology Assistant time to support the service’s quality improvement, audit, evaluation and research activities.
You must have an Honours Degree in Psychology and a Post Graduate Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and be registered with HCPC as Applied Psychologist or be eligible for registration.
Please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification for additional detail. However, should you wish to discuss the post in more detail, please contact either, Dr. Donna Gilroy, Consultant Clinical Psychologist/Professional Lead for Older People’s Psychology or Dr.Lucy Birch, Senior Clinical Psychologist (0131 537 6901).
This post requires the post holder to have a PVG Scheme membership/ record. If the post holder is not a current PVG member for the required regulatory group (i.e. child and/or adult) then an application will need to be made to Disclosure Scotland and deemed satisfactory before they can begin in post.