Principal Practitioner Psychologist - Acute & Urgent Care

We are recruiting to this post as either an 8b Principal Practitioner Psychologist or 8a/8b Preceptorship opportunity depending on experience. The job will be to provide a clinical service, alongside colleagues, for our working age acute wards and crisis team in Eastbourne and Seaford, and professional leadership for our acute and urgent care psychology and psychological therapy colleagues across East Sussex.

The Eastbourne urgent care service is well established, and this would be an excellent opportunity to develop your clinical and leadership expertise alongside a team of committed colleagues in psychology, psychological therapy and other disciplines.

There is considerable scope to be part of exciting developments under way in East Sussex mental health services. We are currently spearheading the establishment of a dedicated Multiple Admissions Patient Pathway (MAPP) with consultant psychologist leadership based on the systemic principles of Open Dialogue. This post would work alongside MAPP and have supervision and support from the MAPP consultant.

We are building a new hospital at Bexhill to replace our inpatient services at the Department of Psychiatry. This means that, if you are successful in your application, you will be asked to transfer to the new facilities when they open in 2025.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will ensure that the multi-disciplinary teams have access to a psychological opinion, and contribute to the development of psychological thinking, understanding and interventions/ approaches within the multi-disciplinary teams. As well as offering consultation, assessments and focused, short-term individual and group interventions, they will contribute to the training and clinical supervision of other staff and offer reflective practice opportunities.

The post holder will also provide leadership and supervision to the other psychological staff in the Eastbourne mental health urgent care. They will also support in the supervision of psychological colleagues those in the other urgent care team in Hastings.

The post holder will be a part of the wider East Sussex Psychological Professions group who work closely together and collaborate to promote and support the development and implementation of effective psychological services across our county. They will also be part of the Trust's Adult Acute Psychological network, which provides specialist guidance and support on governance and best practice, including specialty CPD days.

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is a leading teaching and research mental health trust. We were granted teaching status in 2008 in recognition of our research background and our links with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School and other academic institutions. Currently we are in the top 12 mental health trusts in terms of research participants. Applicants with an interest in research will be welcomed.

Working here offers continued training and development, variety and a rewarding challenge, plus the benefits of living in Sussex, by the sea, in the beautiful South Downs or in any one of the exciting towns and cities we have to offer.