Highly Specialist Psychologist

Job overview

An exciting and unique opportunity has arisen within our Devon cluster prisons, to provide psychological therapies into HMP Channings Wood as part of a 12 month maternity cover starting from January 2026. The post holder will hold their own clinical caseload and be responsible for supervising pre-qualified psychological therapists. Supervision skills training will be provided if required and you will receive clinical supervision from an experienced Lead Psychologist. Your progression is key, and you will be offered development sessions to support your career planning and professional development. 

Please contact Dr Khyati Patel, Consultant Forensic Psychologist & Head of Psychological Therapies, Prison Mental Health Service, Devon Cluster, ([email protected]) for an informal conversation or to know more about the role. We would consider applications from newly qualified psychological therapists or those close to obtaining qualified status.

Important Sponsorship Information for this post: We are currently unable to offer a certificate of sponsorship for this post.

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 Key responsibilities include:

·       To provide direct psychological care (assessment and intervention) and support the delivery of psychologically informed care by all disciplines within the service.

·       To provide highly specialist psychological therapy assessments, formulations and interventions.

·       To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of community clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans, including taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans with input from clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

·       To provide line management to designated assistant psychologists.

Working for our organisation

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

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical and Client Care

·    To provide highly specialist psychological therapy assessments, formulations and interventions.

·    To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of community clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans, including taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans with input from clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

·       To provide culturally appropriate psychological therapy interventions with carers or families of referred clients when required.

·       To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients, family carers and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.

·       To produce reports on clients, in a timely manner, that convey the key findings of psychological assessment and formulation and treatment outcome in a way that does justice to the complexity of the problems described, but that are understandable to the recipients of the reports, including clients and referrers.

·       To undertake psychometric and neuropsychological testing as appropriate, including selecting the appropriate tests, administering and scoring the tests in accordance with the manual, and interpreting the findings in the context of all relevant information.

·       To undertake risk assessment, risk monitoring and risk management for individual clients in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

·       To work in partnership with other disciplines and to maintain links with statutory and non-statutory agencies as appropriate.

·       To ensure that all services provided are acceptable and accessible to the diverse communities served.

·       Implement outcome measurement as determined by the local service.

·       Attend and contribute to psychology and directorate meetings and forums. 

See Job Description & Person Specification for further information.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.  

You will need to provide: 

Proof of right to work documentation 

Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID

Proof of address documentation 

Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code. 

Address History: 

5 years address history will be needed.  

Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously. 

Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.

 In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en).