The postholder will work as a member of the multidisciplinary team in the North Middlesex Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Paediatric Liaison Team (CAPPLT).
The postholder will provide a mixture of general paediatric work, alongside specific input for children with sickle cell disease and their families. They will be responsible for providing specialist clinical psychology input to the sickle cell and thalassemia service. This will include providing psychological assessments, cognitive assessments and therapeutic treatment within a multidisciplinary service, offering advice and consultation on patients’ psychological care to parents, families, groups, paediatric, and other hospital staff, and consultation to other disciplines and professional networks, including staff from outside the hospital.
The postholder will receive clinical psychology supervision from a senior member of the Clinical Psychology discipline and will be responsible and accountable to the North Middlesex Head of Paediatric Liaison Psychological Therapies. The postholder will work autonomously within professional guidelines and within the overall framework of the Paediatric services policies and procedures.
The Post holder will be informed by evidence-based practice and participate in audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the paediatric liaison team.
To provide a specialist clinical psychology service to the sickle cell and thalassemia service within the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Paediatric Liaison team in accordance with objectives agreed with the line manager.
To provide specialist psychological assessments of referred infants and their carers, children and adolescents, parents and carers with sickle cell disease and other physical health conditions to assess the most appropriate treatment for them in co-operation with other members of the multidisciplinary team.
To provide specialist psychological assessments of patients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex 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 patients’ family members and others involved in the patient’s care.
To formulate and implement plans for psychological interventions including treatment and/or management of a patient’s psychological problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patient’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.
To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of patients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Paediatric Liaison Team (CAPPLT) is a multidisciplinary team and is a service held within the wider Babies, Children’s, & Young People Service (BCYP).
The team works with all areas of the paediatric and neonatal service, and this includes the T2 Rainbow Ward, Neonatal Unit, Children’s Outpatients, Children’s Community Nursing & Hospital@Home teams, Paediatric ED and Paediatric Assessment Unit, and the Ocean Day Unit.
The team also takes referrals from Midwifery and other hospital departments. This post has been funded specifically to work within the sickle cell service, and the majority of the post will be in this area with additional generic work dependent on the interest of the post holder.
The hospital is located on the border between Haringey and Enfield, at the most deprived part of each of these Boroughs. Both of these boroughs are two of the most ethnically diverse local authorities in the country and have some very high levels of social and economic deprivation and need with its attendant problems in Mental Health.
This role will involve clinical contact within the paediatric hospital environment with frequent exposure to very distressing situations. There is also potential exposure to infection in out and in-patient settings and a requirement to follow all related IPC processes and procedures.
To assess and evaluate information from the child, family and significant others, multi-disciplinary medical team and external agencies relating to medical condition and developmental status and incorporate this information into a clinical formulation.
To participate and collaborate with other team members in the provision of specialist paediatric clinics within the Paediatric service.
To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to patient’s formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all patients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the patient group.
To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual patients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of psychological care plans including patients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.
To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of patients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
To provide specialist psychological advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team
