Senior Renal Counsellor

**Company Description**
Here at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, we are proud to provide expert, compassionate care for our local population. We are ranked as the third in the country for research, embedding education and training across the organisation. Our main hub is the Queen Alexandra Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals on the south coast employing over 8,700 staff.

Our patients come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds because it makes our hospital stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for getting it right for patients, colleagues, and our community, you will find a home at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.
**Job Description** This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Specialist Counsellor to take on a newly created role within the Wessex Kidney Centre (WKC).**

WKC is situated as Queen Alexandra Hospital (QA) is a Regional Renal & Transplantation Centre which services a population of 2.4 million, across Hampshire and Isle of Wight, plus neighbouring areas of Sussex, Dorset and Wilshire.

**Main duties of the job**

To provide specialist counselling/psychological assessments of clients referred to the Renal Care Psychological Support Service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources. This includes taking a lead on counselling assessments and input for the living donor pathway.

For a more detailed job description, main responsibilities, and person specification, please refer to the job description document attached to this vacancy.

**Qualifications** TRAINING & QUALIFICATIONS**

**_ Essential_**
- Diploma of Higher Education in Humanistic Counselling
- Registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP)
- The post-holder has to have specialist training and experience which is equivalent to Masters level.

**_ Desirable_**
- Accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
- Formal training in the delivery of clinical supervision.

**EXPERIENCE**

**_ Essential_**
- Minimum one year’s post-qualification experience working as a Counsellor.
- Experience of providing counselling for people affected by chronic or life-limiting physical health conditions, or of providing counselling in an end-of-life or bereavement context.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, presenting with problems that reflect a range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems.
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
- Experience of supervising other counsellors.
- Experience of line managing others.

**_ Desirable_**
- Demonstrable experience of working in a renal setting or of with patients and families affected by chronic kidney disease.
- Experience of conducting assessments with patients and family members to inform complex decisions related to the treatment of health conditions including transplants.
- Demonstrable experience of working in a renal setting or of with patients and families affected by chronic kidney disease.
- Experience of conducting assessments with patients and family members to inform complex decisions related to the treatment of health conditions including transplants.

**KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS**

**_ Essential_**
- Skills in psychological assessment, intervention and management using a counselling modality, frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of undertaking counselling within a specialised clinical healthcare setting.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and appropriate NHS guidance and policies for the speciality.
- Demonstrable knowledge and expertise related to the psychosocial management of kidney disease.

**_ Desirable_**
- Demonstrable knowledge of national guidance and clinical best practice related to the care of kidney a disease and kidney transplant.

**Additional Information** What Sets Us Apart?**
- We are the third largest renal unit in England, providing a comprehensive renal service to around 2.4 million adults across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and the adjacent parts of Wiltshire, West Sussex, Berkshire and Surrey.
- We were the first Trust in the UK to provide robot-assisted knee replacement surgery