Clinical​/Forensic Practitioner Psychologist | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Clinical/Forensic Practitioner Psychologist | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Employer:

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Location:

Leyland, Lancashire, PR26 8NE

Pay:

Band 7 or Band 8a dependent on experience

Contract Type:

Contract

Hours:

Full time

Disability Confident:

No

Closing Date:

18/03/2026

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust is the health provider for the delivery of a prison-based assessment and treatment service for residents with personality related needs.

This service is based within HMP Garth which is a category B men's adult prison based in Leyland, Lancashire.

The service is part of the National Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) pathway and is delivered as a partnership between HMP Garth and Mersey Care NHS Trust.

We believe that this post provides a unique opportunity to be part of a psychologically led service with formulation and integrated team working at its core.

The service provides 1:1 and group based interventions based on Professor John Livesley's framework and model of interventions for individuals with personality related needs.

These structured interventions are provided as part of a therapeutic milieu which involves a focus on attachment, trauma and systemic approaches, alongside comprehensive risk assessment and management.

Core aims of the service are consistent with those of the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway in improving psychological wellbeing, reducing risk, improving staff skills and competencies and pathway focussed intervention.

The post holder will be joining a dedicated team of clinical and prison officer staff from a range of backgrounds and experience.

Team members have high levels of skill, passion and enthusiasm (and humour) and are committed to ensuring the on-going successful development of the service and the opportunities it provides for our population.

The post holder will contribute to the systematic provision of specialised psychological services to residents within the Beacon.

Applicants should have doctoral level training in clinical psychology or equivalent or will be a qualified chartered forensic psychologist.

You should have some experience of working with individuals with complex clinical and risk presentations including within institutional settings and as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

This should include work with clients whose needs may meet criteria for a diagnosis of personality disorder and who may find it difficult to engage with services.

Experience of working in complex service and organisational settings is required alongside an ability to constructively manage the personal, professional and ethical opportunities and challenges such work can involve.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than
1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services.

Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’

• care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient.

We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together.

We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

We are recruiting a clinical or forensic psychologist to join the team on a temporary basis for 12 months, this is to cover a period of maternity leave.

Applicants at Band 7 or Band 8a level are eligible to apply.

Full details of roles and responsibilities can be found in the attached job description.

Clinical roles and responsibilities:
To provide specialist psychological assessments of offenders referred…