Assistant Psychologist -Macmillan Psychologist Support Project Officer

We are seeking a Project Officer to support the development of the recently commissioned Specialist Macmillan Clinical Psychologist Service within the Psycho-oncology Service, Physical Health Psychology Specialty, LPFT. This role is well suited to the skill set of an Assistant Psychologist.

A unique opportunity has arisen enabling the employment of an Assistant Psychologist within the Psycho-oncology Service in Lincolnshire that provides specialist help for adults with cancer across Lincolnshire, both within the community and in hospital. Applications are invited from enthusiastic individuals to join an innovative and specialist countywide service. We are looking for someone who is pro-active with a good range of communication, IT and organisational skills to assist the setting up of the expanded service. Experience of working with individuals with acute and chronic physical ill-health is welcomed, as is a passion for helping to develop a service for people with serious illness.

The speciality prides itself as being a close, tight-knit and very positive team to work in, where people are very motivated to provide the best service they can using their initiative and love of working with the diverse challenges.

Enquiries to Jen Carty Psycho-oncology Psychologist Email jen.carty@nhs.net, or Bridget Goard, Service Administrator Email bridget.goard@nhs.net tel. 01476 464046

The post holder will be supporting the Head of Specialty and the Practioner Psychologists in the significant service development that has been newly commissioned.

The role will involve assisting in setting up appropriate organisational and IT systems, including clinical data collection and the collation of metrics enabling the measurement of the success of the new service. It will require liaison with individuals both in LPFT and outside of it, especially with Macmillan and the East Midlands Cancer Alliance, plus neighbouring services. Some client contact is expected.

Participating in the wider Physical Health Psychology specialty work would be welcomed since the specialty is close-knit and the multidisciplinary staff work together to meet the needs of their patients, share ideas and develop the services offered.

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health services and a number of learning disability, autism and social care services in the county of Lincolnshire. Employing around 2,800 staff, and serving a population of over 766,000, our people lie at the heart of everything we do.

You could be part of a Trust rated by staff as one of the best mental health and learning disability trusts in England, in an area heralded as a fantastic place to live and work. We firmly believe the key to high quality care is a contented workforce. This is reflected in our Care Quality Commission rating of ‘outstanding’ for well-led and ‘good’ overall. In the most recent National NHS Staff Survey, our staff rated us as the number one trust nationally for staff morale and one of the top scoring NHS Trusts in the Midlands for being compassionate and inclusive. We’re proud of this!

We are also leading the way in transforming care, with multi-million-pound transformation of patient environments and radical redesign of community services.

This is the time to join and help redesign our services of the future. We offer options for flexible working and provide a wide range of training and promotion opportunities in all professions. We support and celebrate diversity, have active staff networks groups and are always looking at what more we can do to support our staff.

The focus of the role is to support the development and provision of a comprehensive clinical psychology service to cancer MDTs in Lincolnshire, as part of the Physical Health Psychology Psycho-oncology Service. The team provides clinical psychology services to all cancer MDTs across Lincolnshire.

The service is delivered in line with professional guidelines including the NICE Guidance for Supportive and Palliative Care and includes provision of level 4 specialist psychological assessment and therapy for patients with complex physical and psychological health needs and their carers; offering consultation, supervision and training for Cancer Nurse Specialists and other staff; and utilising research skills for general audit and service evaluation, as well as for specialty and service developments.

Whilst the post holder will have a mainly supportive and organisational role, some contact with clients and people with lived experience of cancer is expected. Thus the post holder will need a diverse range of skills to reliably and efficiently help to facilitate the development of the Macmillan Psycho-oncology Service.