Job Description

Duties and Responsibilities Communication and Working Relationships Patients, family and carers: To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner with patients who may have specific difficulties in understand and/or communicating and who may be hostile, antagonistic or highly emotionally disturbed. Multidisciplinary team colleagues: To work closely with colleagues in the multi-professional gender identity service on a day to day basis. To contribute to the teams engagement including liaising with a wide range of professionals and agencies. Health & social care staff: To communicate with a wide range of health & social care staff in a range of settings in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex and sensitive information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of patients under the services care.

To provide support & guidance in the application of psychological principles and techniques, and to foster reflective practice. Senior managers & professional staff: To maintain and build good working relationships with senior professional staff and managers across the gender identity service and in DPT to foster a positive approach to gender service provision and to enable effective negotiation. Planning and Organisation The service: To plan and prioritise own workload, balancing the demands of patient care, support and guidance of carers and professionals and service research and development activities. To contribute to the planning and organising of the psychological service within the gender identity service and to contribute to the development and improvement of provision of psychological services to best meet the organisations strategy and priorities.

The multidisciplinary service: To provide psychological knowledge to the multiprofessional planning, development and marketing of the gender identity service. Responsibility for Judgement and Analysis To provide specialist psychological expertise and advice. To provide psychological therapies/other therapies, developing specialist psychological formulations and assessments of clients, formulating plans for their psychological treatment and implementing specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups. To support the Senior Psychologist by undertaking service development and redesign projects and coordinating the resulting work within the team.

Responsibility for Patient Care, Treatment and Therapy Assessment, formulation & intervention: To make highly skilled evaluations and decisions about assessment, treatment and discharge, including the management of risk. To contribute to assessments to aid care pathway planning and to inform decisions about eligibility for gender service interventions. To formulate plans for psychological treatment and implementing specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups and to demonstrate awareness of diversity issues. To maintain accurate and up to date client records Consultation & guidance: To provide advice, guidance and consultation on psychological aspects of patient care to colleagues, other service providers, patients, supporters and families.

Policy, Service, Research, Innovation and Improvement The post holder is accountable for their own professional actions, acting within Trust policies and procedures and Professional Practice Guidelines. Policy & service: To support proposed changes for policy and for service development. Responsibility for Finance, Equipment and Other Resources Careful use of equipment. Information Resources and Administrative Duties To maintain accurate records, compliant with Trust Practice Standards.

To be responsible for using an email account to generate, monitor, and respond to the e-mail traffic by which the Trust conducts much of its internal communication. Responsibility for Research and Development To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in clinical work within the gender identity service. To support project work including specific areas of audit, research or service evaluation As a clinician to be responsible for collecting clinical practice and outcome data that contributes to building practice based evidence and service evaluation. Freedom to Act The post holder is accountable for their own professional actions, acting within Trust policies and procedures and Professional Practice Guidelines To work autonomously within clinical professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the governance of psychological practice within the locality/specialty.

Interpretation of professional and Trust guidelines, and implementing policies in conjunction with peers, Senior Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Team Leader. To provide specialist psychological expertise and advice guidance and consultation on psychological aspects of patient care to colleagues, other service providers, patients, supporters and families. Any Other Specific Tasks Required To ensure all clinical care and treatment provided by psychologists is carried out under appropriate supervision and leadership. To ensure that all relevant staff groups continuously update the skills and techniques relevant to their clinical work.

Review of this Job Description This job description is intended as an outline indicator of general areas of activity and will be amended in the light of changing service needs. This job description is to be reviewed in conjunction with the post holder on an annual basis. General Information Equality & Diversity Devon Partnership NHS Trust is committed to recruiting and supporting a diverse workforce and so we welcome applications from all sections of the community regardless of age, disability, sex, race, religion or sexual orientation, maternity/pregnancy, marriage/civil partnership or transgender status. The Trust expects all staff to behave in a way which recognises and respects this diversity in line with the appropriate standards.

Recovery It is a requirement of all employees to have an understanding of the broad principles of the Recovery Approach and to incorporate them into every aspect of their work in support of the Trusts aim to provide services that support peoples recovery through being holistic and promoting social inclusion, self management, personal autonomy and independence. Risk Management / Health and Safety Employees must be aware of the responsibilities placed on them under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, ensure that agreed safety procedures are carried out and maintain a safe environment for employees, patients and visitors. Records Management The post holder has responsibility for the timely and accurate creation, maintenance and storage of records in accordance with Trust policy, including email documents and with regard to the Data Protection Act, The Freedom of Information Act and any other relevant statutory requirements. Clinical Governance, Compliance and Performance The post holder will be responsible for proving that the Care Quality Commission outcome areas have been met in all registered/related activities for which the post holder is responsible.

Where outcomes are not met the post holder is expected to put in place/recommend action to improve. The post holder will proactively seek and engage the support of the governance teams in the Compliance and Corporate Development directorate to gather information as required. The post holder will build an understanding of and adhere to the CQC guidelines as well as the Trusts guidelines on the approach to maintaining CQC registration. Prevention and Control of healthcare Associated Infection The post holder is expected to comply with Trust Infection Control Policies and conduct themselves at all times in such a manner as to minimise the risk of healthcare associated infection.

Smoking The Trust operates a non smoking policy. Employees are not permitted to smoke anywhere within the premises of the Trust or when outside on official business. Staff must also be mindful of public perception and must therefore not smoke whilst travelling in Trust identified vehicles or when can be identified as Devon Partnership Mental Health Trust staff. Policies & Procedures Trust employees are expected to follow Trust policies, procedures and guidance as well as professional standards and guidelines.

It is your responsibility to read and familiarise yourself with all policies relevant to your job role. These are grouped into two sections, HR and Clinical and can be found on the Trust intranet site or via your line manager. You will also be required to comply with any training needs that arise from reviews or variations of policies and procedures.

Job Description

The main duties of the post include assessment, provision of individual psychological therapy, and possibly support to community team colleagies.