Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust • Sidcup DA14 6LT

Principle Psychological Therapist | Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

About this role

We are seeking to recruit a highly skilled, innovative and experienced psychological Therapist (Clinical/ Counselling/ Forensic Psychologist or CBT Therapist/ Psychotherapist) to provide clinical and professional leadership to Bexley Home Treatment Team. The post holder will join the team manager and consultant psychiatrist in providing clinical leadership to the team. They will take a lead role in developing and managing the provision of psychological interventions in the team, including individual and group-based interventions. They will also offer training, consultation, supervision and reflective practice within the service as a whole.

The post holder will provide skilled and experienced leadership to the Bexley Home Treatment Team (HTT), overseeing the provision and development of the psychological interventions and wider psychosocial and trauma-informed practice in the service. The post will ensure the systematic provision of a high-quality specialist psychology service to service users of Bexley HTT and their support networks (including families and carers).

To supervise and support the psychological assessment and intervention provided by other clinical members of the service who provide psychologically-based care and treatment.

To provide consultation, reflective practice and incident debriefs to the service and to facilitate team working, psychologically informed practice, trauma-informed care and appropriate treatment pathways to optimise service user journey and experience across service transitions.

The post will also involve close organisational liaison with the wider Oxleas mental health system and third sector partners.

The post holder will be expected to work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/teams.

To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research.

To propose and implement policy changes within the area served by the teams/service. To contribute to the overall management of the service.

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

We’re Kind
We’re Fair
We Listen
We Care

Management responsibilities

To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the HTT, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients.
To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service.
To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees and qualified psychologist and other clinical staff.
To provide day to day management of the psychology staff within the service.
To be an authorised signatory for staff related expenses.
Liaise with the budget holder to agree best use of funds and be responsible for reviewing and monitoring usage.
To contribute to the overall management and functioning of the service.

Leadership

To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical and/or counselling psychologists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to qualified clinical staff attached to the service.
To provide advice, consultation and clinical supervision to other clinical members of the service for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients’ functioning.
To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.
To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Clinical

As the lead Psychologist/ Psychological therapist for Bexley HTT, to provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the servicebased upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.
To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
To be responsible for implementing a range of 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 provisional hypotheses.
To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.
To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management, including responsibilities within the policies and clinical duties to safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.
To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care. This will require being able to convey this to clients, families and colleagues with a range of understanding and knowledge so will require the ability to be flexible, adaptive and simple but yet retain a sophisticated understanding and approach. This communication is likely to take place in situations which are highly emotive and with people who may also have concurrent and/or associated physical health conditions.
To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.

Research

To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the team’s operational policies, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high-quality care.
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 initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to clients and their families.

Communication

To maintain appropriate relevant professional registration (e.g. HCPC, BABCP etc).
To ensure the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.
To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology within the service area and contribute across the service by exercising 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.
To maintain and promulgate 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, Health Professions Council and Trust policies and procedures.
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.

This advert closes on Sunday 14 Jun 2026

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