Macmillan Assistant Psychologist

• To assist practitioner psychologists in the delivery of a specialist applied psychology service in cancer care.
• To provide clinical work as required by the service, under the clinical and professional supervision of a practitioner psychologist.
• To assist in clinical and service-related administration, conduct of audits, collection of statistics, development of audit and/or research projects, teaching, group work, and project work.
• To ensure that systems are in place for the effective administration and management of the patient referral process. This will include providing key support for the collation and screening of new referrals, requesting additional referral information if required, presenting referrals in the team meeting, providing necessary telephone triage, and managing outcomes.
• To attend and contribute to weekly service level meetings, and multi-disciplinary team meetings.
• To work at appropriate levels of independence, following clinical guidelines and the policies and procedures of the service, and seeking help from clinical/professional supervisor or manager as required.

• To contribute to the effective working of the Service, for example by managing the services clinical database that capture patient flow through the service, ensuring that this is accurate and timely for each weekly clinical meeting.
• To act in a manner that supports a psychologically informed framework for the service.
• To support the team or services delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.

• To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.
• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry.
• To create and maintain databases, enter data, and perform analyses for service reports.
• To coordinate the collection, management, and analysis of outcomes for training and supervision sessions delivered to MDT colleagues.

• To provide clinical work as required by the service, under the clinical and professional supervision of a practitioner psychologist.
• Where appropriate, to assist in the provision of psychological assessment and interventions for patients with less complex needs in the cancer psychological care team under the supervision of a more senior psychologist.
• To use weekly supervision meetings appropriately, to develop skills, including reflective capacity.
• Where appropriate, to arrange, schedule and help provide support connected to group psychological interventions for patients.
• To assist the psychologists in the development of individual or group clinical materials or training materials, and in addition to develop such materials independently as falls within own degree of competence.
• To contribute to the training and support of other staff in developing and providing psychological care of clients.

Essential

• A First-class or Upper-second-class Bachelors degree with Honours in Psychology that is accredited by the British Psychological Society and confers the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership of the British Psychological Society.

Essential

• Sufficient post-graduate experience of psychological assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs to be able to work clinically without direct supervision.
• Post-graduate experience of conducting research projects or audits.
• Experience that supports working with, and addressing issues of, diversity within local communities. This may have been gained through work, research, volunteering and / or lived experience.
• Graduate level knowledge of psychological research methodology and statistical analysis.
• Good theoretical knowledge of the problems experienced by and needs of adults with cancer and of methods of assessment and treatment.
• Awareness of racial and diversity issues through attendance of relevant training.

Desirable

• Post-graduate experience of psychological assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs specifically related to cancer.
• Experience of working in multidisciplinary teams with colleagues from a range of disciplines.
• The Trust encourages and welcomes applications from people with lived experience of mental health challenges. We see this as valuable and recognise the positive impact this experience can have on the work we do

Essential

• Skills in relevant psychological assessment and interventions that enable working independently as a pre-qualified practitioner with clinical supervision.
• Well-developed verbal and written communication skills including communicating complex, sensitive or contentious information to clients, families and colleagues.
• Consultation skills to work with the multi-professional team or other professional groups within own service.
• Skills in providing teaching and training to other professional groups.
• Well-developed IT skills including entry and analysis of research data.
• Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team, contributing to effective team functioning and holding team roles.
• Ability to identify and follow relevant clinical governance procedures.
• Ability to maintain concentration and to remain in restricted positions for long periods during observations, assessments and psychological interventions.
• Ability to manage emotionally stressful situations such as working with victims of abuse or trauma, or with people who engage in severe self-harming or aggressive behaviour.
• Ability to communicate complex, sensitive or contentious information to people who may be aroused, or hostile to the information, or have severe impediments to understanding.
• Ability to manage verbal aggression and hostility directed at self.