Clinical / Counselling / Health Psychologist

The Renal Psychology Service at St George's Hospital was established in April 2010 and has become an integral part of the unit supporting patients and the clinical teams across the entire service. (i.e. Inpatient, Outpatient Haemodialysis/Peritoneal Dialysis, Transplantation, Low Clearance Clinic). Clinical work with individual patients and their families/carers includes:

• Helping patients adjust to their diagnosis or illness and changes in its severity.
• Design and implement interventions with patients having psychological difficulties due to/or exacerbated by their illness and its treatment
• Assisting patients with making complex treatment choices such as which form of renal replacement therapy to choose.
• Understanding and resolving treatment adherence issues particularly in low clearance patients., With support from the senior psychologist in the directorate, to be responsible for providing high quality, specialist clinical / counselling psychology input to the Renal Service. This will include providing specialist psychological assessment and therapy, offering advice and consultation on psychological aspects of renal care to other health professionals and non professional carers. Where appropriate, the post holder will exercise autonomous professional responsibility for clinical decisions, working within professional guidelines and the service's policies and procedures. The post holder will be expected to utilise their knowledge of evidence based psychological interventions and research skills to identify and implement audit, research and service development projects. The postholder will also be involved in the training and continuing professional development of clinical psychologists and other health professionals.
  
  St George'sHospital is a thriving Foundation Trust at the heart of an integrated healthcare system. One that delivers improved patient care at a community, hospital and specialist setting, supported by a unique and nationally recognised programme of research, education and employee engagement. We expect all our staff to share the values that are important to the Trust, being Excellent, Kind, Responsible & Respectful, and behave in a way that reflects these.