This is an exciting opportunity to lead psychological therapies across Oxleas' forensic inpatient and community services, including medium and low secure wards, community forensic multidisciplinary teams, and a dedicated community forensic psychological therapies service.
We are looking for a senior psychological therapist to join the directorate’s management team and who is experienced in multi-disciplinary forensic healthcare services and passionate about delivering psychologically informed care at scale.
This post will suit highly visible leaders who seek a blend of leadership and direct clinical work. As Consultant Psychological Therapist, you will maintain a strong clinical presence through providing psychological input to an inpatient ward and a small outpatient caseload. Alongside, working with the psychological therapies Head of Specialty and directorate’s management team, you will influence the service’s culture, practice, and service developments. You will embed psychological thinking at every level of care, strengthening relational security and delivering meaningful outcomes for patients.
Key responsibilities include:
Leading and managing Psychological Therapies Services across inpatient and community forensic pathways, to deliver high-quality psychological assessments and interventions to address mental health needs and risks to others.
Providing clinical and operational oversight of a specialist community psychological therapies service for people with complex emotional and interpersonal difficulties who harm others.
Maintaining a clinical caseload.
- To be or to work towards qualification as an AC / RC approved under the Mental Health Act (2007)
- Ensuring the delivery of reflective practice to support compassionate, psychologically informed teams.
Supporting and supervising principal psychologists and other psychological therapies staff, ensuring their professional development.
Promoting trauma-informed approaches across multidisciplinary teams and services.
Ensuring high standards of clinical governance and quality improvement.
Contributing as a senior member of the directorate leadership team.
Leading service evaluation, outcome monitoring, research activity and service development initiatives.
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
This role involves providing strategic, clinical and operational leadership for psychological therapies across inpatient and community forensic services, ensuring the delivery of high-quality assessments and interventions that address both mental health needs and risks to others. The postholder oversees a specialist community psychological therapies service for individuals with complex emotional and interpersonal difficulties associated with harmful behaviour, while maintaining their own clinical caseload. They are expected to be, or work towards becoming, an Approved Clinician/Responsible Clinician under the Mental Health Act (2007). A key aspect of the role is fostering reflective practice and psychologically informed, compassionate teams through supervision, support and professional development of principal psychologists and other psychological therapies staff. The postholder promotes trauma-informed approaches across multidisciplinary services, maintains robust standards of clinical governance and quality improvement, contributes to directorate leadership, and leads service evaluation, outcome monitoring, research and service development activity to enhance the effectiveness and quality of care.
