Principal Practitioner Psychologist - Adult Inpatients

Job summary
Are you interested in shaping a new Women's Mental Health Pathway including an Enhanced Care Unit (ECU)?

If you are an experienced psychologist ready to offer leadership to adult inpatient mental health services, we have an exciting opportunity for a Principal Practitioner Psychologist working into the treatment wards and ECU due to open in Spring 2027. We are looking for a person with significant post-qualification experience in adult mental health settings, ideally for women, developing trauma informed pathways and service delivery.

The successful applicant will join the adult inpatient psychology hub, comprising friendly and engaged psychologists, trainees and assistant psychologists and be part of the broader divisional psychology team with community-based colleagues.

You will be responsible for co-ordinating the systematic provision of psychological care to the treatment pathway and the ECU, working closely with your peer Principal Psychologist for Crisis & Assessment Pathway and a counselling psychology trained AC within the ECU.

The USPs of this role are working with experienced senior peer support, the opportunity to shape a new women's pathway and service, steering the model for hub-working across the teams and developing patient focussed pathways between inpatient and community Neighbourhood Teams as they come into fruition.

Please see the additional document for more about the vision for the ECU and the inpatient psychology provision going forward.

Main duties of the job

• Providing senior clinical leadership within inpatient treatment services with the inpatient psychology team including co-ordinating and supporting the delivery and governance of high-quality psychological services across the treatment wards and the ECU.
• Promoting the role of psychology within the service and offering professional guidance, training, consultation, supervision and support to the inpatient MDT to aid development and support staff wellbeing.
• Provide specialist psychological assessment, formulation and bespoke short-term therapy for individuals with complex mental health needs utilising evidence-based practice. The provision for continuing providing longer-term therapy when people have been discharged back into the community is currently under review. This will require support from the Principal Psychologist in reviewing the need for this.
• Contributing to service development and service delivery at a senior level, promoting a trauma informed approach within the service and working with senior colleagues to develop and establish the Women's MH pathway across the treatment units but specifically the 18 bedded female treatment ward and the 6 bedded ECU.
• The role will also involve supporting workforce development in line with service need and contributing to a positive culture. This will be based upon service evaluation and national guidance.

About us
We are an award winning and CQC rated good health and social care Trust delivering integrated services across Hull, East and North Yorkshire. Find out more on our website.

We are a forward thinking and dynamic Trust with a real commitment to staff development. We value our colleagues and invest in them to ensure they have the right skills to deliver outstanding care.

We are proud to score above or equal to the average for all NHS People Promise theme areas demonstrating our commitment to improve the experience of working in the NHS for everyone. Wherever you work we know you will receive a warm welcome and all the support you'll need to get you started.

We recognise the positive value of diversity and promotes equality whilst challenging discrimination. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

Work life balance is about having influence and flexibility over when, where and how you work. If the work pattern for this role does not meet your needs, we welcome an application and are happy to discuss working arrangements that differ from those advertised.

We offer a unique range of benefits that go above and beyond other NHS Trusts including an enhanced leave package and health and wellbeing support.

From city to countryside, market towns to moors you'll find a place to call home including some of the most affordable places to live in the UK.

Find out more and search live jobs.

Details
Date posted: 21 October 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 8b
Salary: £66,582 to £77,368 a year per annum
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time
Reference number: 338-8321732-26
Job locations: Westlands Inpatient Unit, Wheeler Street, Hull, HU3 5QE, United Kingdom

Essential qualifications

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical, forensic or counselling psychology or its equivalent if qualified before 1993 accredited by the BPS
• Current HCPC registration
• Clinical supervision training for doctoral trainees
• Skills in co-ordinating programmes of care, and providing consultation and specialist advice to other professional and non-professional groups
• To take a senior clinical role in partnership with the clinical team in managing complex cases

Desirable qualifications

• Post-doctoral training in one or more specialised areas of psychological practice relevant to this client group
• Advanced/expert understanding/application of relevant clinical practice/standards/audit within identified clinical area
• Leadership or management qualification

Essential experience

• Demonstrable experience of working as a practitioner psychologist, to include a significant period of working at a senior level in the specific specialist field where the post is held
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for service users' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings
• Experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision
• Be able to effectively Chair meetings

Desirable experience

• A breadth of clinical practice including clinically specialising in the field where the post is held
• Proven leadership/management experience, able to demonstrate examples of positive impact/change within service delivery/practice at an advanced level
• Ability to work across team/organisational boundaries developing and maintaining multi-professional and multi-agency partnerships
• Experience of developing others through education, mentorship, coaching, teaching, assessing, presentations, publishing

Essential skills

• Able to demonstrate effective communication skills
• Ability to lead and motivate staff to embrace change
• Working knowledge of Trust policies and procedures in order to effectively lead and manage others
• Evidence of resiliency when working with challenging client groups

Desirable skills

• Able to demonstrate effective communication skills at all levels i.e. strategically and locally
• Be able to demonstrate leadership/management skills at an advanced level

Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website. From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants.

UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website.

Employer contact details
Professional Lead for AMH Psychology, Dawn Peters, dawnpeters1@nhs.net, 07919545370

Apply through our website.