Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist
Permanent, Full Time
Job Specification & Terms and Conditions
Job Title and Grade
Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist
Competition Reference
2025/166
Closing Date
Friday December 12th, 5 pm.
Taking up Appointment
A start date will be indicated at job offer stage.
Location of Post
Rotunda Hospital
Details of Service
Endometriosis is among the most prevalent health conditions affecting women in Ireland. It is a difficult condition to diagnose and treat because of the variation of presentations, impacting the physical and mental wellbeing of patients at varying levels. Endometriosis is a multifactorial condition leading to chronic pain, fertility issues and severe psychosocial challenges. Recent research points to the importance of psychosocial factors such as stress, trauma and adverse experiences in the development and experience of endometriosis. Integrating psychological interventions early into treatment regimens supports positive patient outcomes and leads to improvements in quality of life.
The National Women and Infants Health Programme (NWIHP), with funding from the Department of Health and the Women's Health Taskforce, are supporting the establishment of National Supra-Regional Services for Endometriosis. The Model of Care (MOC) launched in October 2025 provides a clear framework for helping women experiencing endometriosis. The model recognises that the range of symptoms experienced by a woman may not always correlate with the staging of disease and in fact, some women with mild endometriosis may experience symptoms far more extreme and debilitating. The same can be said for those with severe or high-grade disease but who experience minimal side effects.
The MOC represents a shift in the traditional approach to the management of endometriosis, focusing on the management of chronic pain and presenting a holistic approach to care to enhance quality of life, ensuring that the correct health care professionals are positioned to manage the extent of a woman's endometriosis-related symptoms. Given that a surgical approach alone may not be suitable for all, the MOC has prioritized the availability of multi-disciplinary resources to include physiotherapy, dietetics, pain management specialists, and psychologists to manage the broad spectrum of symptoms associated with this condition. Under the model of care, the Rotunda Hospital operates as a regional specialist centre.
Psychology in the Rotunda
Psychology is a relatively new and growing profession within the Rotunda Hospital. Hospital. Psychology services centre on meeting the psychological needs of patients and their families in the context of their physical and/ or mental health conditions with the primary aims of improving health outcomes for patients, reducing psychological distress, and enhancing overall wellbeing and quality of life. The hospital currently has a principal clinical psychologist and two senior clinical psychologists. We offer services in the areas of perinatal mental health, neonatal psychology and paediatric and adolescent gynaecology.
Reporting Relationship
Clinical lead for Gynaecology, clinical lead for Endometriosis and Principal Psychologist.
Purpose of the Post
The Rotunda Hospital is seeking an experienced Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to join our Gynaecology team with a focus on endometriosis team and help shape a dedicated psychological service to support and empower patients living with this and other life affecting Gynae conditions.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities
Professional / Clinical
The Senior Psychologist will:
Provide an empirically supported professional psychology service to Endometriosis & specialised Gynae patients in line with best practice, professional conduct, and clinical governance. This will involve setting up a new psychology service for these patients and establishing an appropriate referral pathway to psychology (in keeping with the MDT model) and delivering evidence-based psychological assessment and interventions as appropriate.
Work flexibly within the MDT team to manage an appropriate caseload of patients including patients presenting with significant need, complex presentations, and potential high levels of psychological distress. This includes any follow up as required and linking patients into their local community services where necessary.
Attend MDT meetings, huddles, ward rounds and other meetings as appropriate, and provide psychological consultation regarding the formulation of patients' needs.
Provide psychological assessments for the client group based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, direct and indirect observation and interviews with clients, family members and / or carers.
Contribute to a psychological perspective and formulation of patient care and implement plans for psychological interventions and/or management based on the appropriate conceptual framework.
Deliver psychological intervention as appropriate drawing upon the appropriate models and frameworks.
Be able to make highly specialist clinical decisions following assessment of complex cases.
Communicate results of assessments and recommendations to the service user and relevant others as appropriate.
Document all assessments, diagnoses, treatment / intervention plans, clinical notes, relevant contacts and summaries in accordance with department and professional standards.
Collaborate with and empower the service user, family, carers and other staff in goal setting and treatment/ intervention planning.
Represent and advocate for the psychological needs of service users.
Communicate effectively and work in co-operation with team members and others to ensure integrated service
Foster close working relationships with colleagues and other relevant professionals in maximising the service users' potential. Maintain collaborative working relationships with psychology colleagues, members of the multidisciplinary team, management, outside agencies and services in the public and private sector to ensure integrated service provision.
Develop and maintain close liaison with key stakeholders.
Contribute a psychological perspective to case planning and multi-agency case working and review and call multi-professional meetings when appropriate.
Ensure coordinated interdisciplinary and inter-agency service delivery.
Be aware of and refer the service user to other services as necessary.
Promote and foster an understanding of the role and contribution of psychology by providing professional consultation, education, guidance and support to others as required.
Act as a representative of the psychology service / profession as required.
Initiate and participate in needs assessment and health promotion as appropriate.
Provide clinical supervision to other Psychology staff members as required.
Provide professional reports as required in accordance with professional standards.
Participate in meetings, committees and/or conferences as required.
Work in and promote an ethical and professional manner at all times.
Promote a culture that values equality, diversity and respect in the workplace.
Promote the principals of Trauma Informed Care and support colleagues in development of trauma awareness and sensitivity.
Deputise for the Principal Psychologist as appropriate / required.
Research & Evaluation
The Senior Psychologist will:
Undertake project management including audit and service evaluation with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
Participate in evaluation of clinical / professional activity and provide such information as required by the Psychology Manager for the purpose of service monitoring, evaluation and improvement.
Utilise evidence-based literature and research to support effective practice.
Conduct and promote service related research, providing research advice as appropriate.
Disseminate research outcomes in professionally recognised journals and share information on outcomes at professional conferences where appropriate.
Represent a professional viewpoint in relation to nationally accepted good practice, promoting a high level of ethical standards and professional conduct.
Education & Training
The Senior Psychologist will:
Engage in regular clinical professional supervision and provide professional and clinical supervision of trainee psychologists.
Provide supervision to the work of non-psychologists in delivery of psychological interventions as appropriate.
Provide supervision as appropriate on running community-based intervention groups for other professions.
Provide post-graduate teaching and training and deliver teaching and training to professional postgraduates including Doctoral Psychology trainees.
Provide psychological training, advice and consultation to staff from health and other agencies in areas relevant to direct clinical work and to psychology service provision.
Provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings where appropriate.
Attend mandatory training programmes.
Keep informed of advances in professional knowledge and practice and developments in national policies, strategies and legislation and perceived impact on practice.
Take responsibility for continuous professional development and ensure compliance with statutory registration requirements.
In collaboration with the Principal Psychologist, attend training courses as informed by service requirements and career & personal development planning.
Be responsible for the induction of new staff as appropriate.
Administrative
The Senior Psychologist will:
Manage and co-ordinate service delivery in their area of responsibility.
Ensure the maintenance of appropriate service user records and statistics in accordance with requirements and local guidelines, Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Acts and other relevant legislation.
Provide service reports / data as required.
Contribute to the development and implementation of information sharing protocols, audit systems, referral pathways and integrated care arrangements.
Maintain an awareness of HR policies and procedures / engage in recruitment processes and other HR functions as required.
Maintain professional standards with regard to service user and data confidentiality.
Acts as spokesperson for the Organisation as required.
Demonstrates pro-active commitment to all communications with internal and external stakeholders.
Keep up to date with organisational developments within the Rotunda and the Irish Health Service.
The above is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all duties involved and consequently, the post holder may be required to perform other duties as appropriate to the post which may be assigned to him/her from time to time and to contribute to the development of the post while in office.
Eligibility Criteria
Qualifications and/ or experience
Professional Qualifications
Essential
A recognised University degree or diploma obtained with first or second class honours in which psychology was taken as a major subject and honours obtained in that subject
AND
Have an Irish post-graduate professional psychology qualification accredited by the Psychological Society of Ireland in Clinical, or Counselling Psychology
OR
An equivalent qualification from another jurisdiction validated by the Department of Health
Desirable
Further training in therapeutic modalities relevant to this role, e.g., CBT, ACT, MBCT, EMDR.
Experience
Essential
Minimum of five years satisfactory postgraduate experience in the area of professional psychology in which the position is designated.
The above eligibility criteria apply without prejudice to applicants employed in a post of Psychologist or above in the Irish public health service at October 2002.
Note: Combinations of supervised clinical placement experience as part of the qualification and post qualification supervised work experience within a single care group area to give a total of 60 days are not acceptable.
The five years' experience must comprise of no more than three years of Post Graduate training and no less than two full years' experience as a Staff Grade Psychologist.
Years in excess of the permitted three years for completion of the Post Graduate training, or time not worked, cannot be taken into consideration when assessing the five years' experience requirement
Desirable
Experience working clinically with people with physical health conditions.
Experience working as a psychologist in a hospital environment.
Experience of provision of psychological assessment, formulation and intervention with people with physical health conditions.
Experience in clinical service development and evaluation.
Demonstrated competence in the planning, development, delivery and evaluation of a quality psychological service in an acute hospital or other relevant setting.
Entry to competition / recruitment process
Health
A candidate for and any person holding the office must be fully competent and capable of undertaking the duties attached to the office and be in a state of health such as would indicate a reasonable prospect of ability to render regular and efficient service.
Character
Each candidate for and any person holding the office must be of good character
Age
Age restrictions shall only apply to a candidate where he/she is not classified as a new entrant (within the meaning of the Public Service Superannuation Act, A candidate who is not classified as a new entrant must be under 65 years of age on the first day of the month in which the latest date for receiving completed application forms for the office occurs.
Other requirements specific to the post
Post Specific Requirements:
The Senior Psychologist will:
Demonstrate depth and breadth of experience of working as a psychologist with adults in primary care, mental health, physical health or other tertiary settings.
Demonstrate depth and breadth of experience of working as a psychologist across the lifespan.
Demonstrate depth and breadth of experience in the provision of assessment, formulation, intervention, evaluation, reporting and supervision with a broad range of clinical problems in terms of complexity and severity seen in people with physical health/ medical conditions, as relevant to the role.
Demonstrate the capacity to develop, deliver and evaluate services following evidence-based models of intervention.
Demonstrate the capacity to work within inter- and multi-disciplinary teams.
Skills, competencies and/or knowledge
Professional Knowledge & Experience
Demonstrates the clinical knowledge and evidence-based practice to carry out the duties and responsibilities of the role.
Demonstrates the abilities and technical skills required to provide safe, efficient and effective service in the area of practice.
Demonstrates an ability to apply knowledge to best practice.
Demonstrates competence in delivering a professional service and an awareness of current professional issues.
Demonstrates a clear understanding of professional ethics.
Demonstrates knowledge of research methods.
Demonstrates commitment to continuing professional development and a clear commitment to the supervision process.
Demonstrates a willingness to develop IT skills relevant to the role.
Planning and Managing Resources
Demonstrates the ability to plan and deliver care in an effective and resourceful manner within a model of person-centred care.
Demonstrates flexibility, adaptability and the ability to prioritise, is committed to the delivery of targets.
Demonstrates innovation to overcome resource limitations.
Has an understanding of the practicalities of service planning, value for money and cost-benefit analysis.
Managing and Developing (Self and Others)
Demonstrates the ability to work independently as well as part of a team.
Adapts leadership style to suit the demands of the situation and the people involved.
Is motivated, perseveres despite setback and ensures that goals are achieved
Demonstrate an ability to manage and develop self and others in a busy working environment.
Demonstrates a commitment to continuing professional development.
Commitment to providing a Quality Service
Demonstrates a commitment to assuring high standards and striving for a user centred service.
Is aware of policy, legislative and professional requirements to ensure appropriate standards in area of responsibility.
Is open to change and supports the services' ongoing change agenda.
Ensures that all service users are treated with dignity and respect and that service user welfare is a key consideration at all times.
Evaluating Information and Judging Situations
Gathers and analyses appropriate information to make well-founded decisions.
Makes decisions in a transparent manner by involving and empowering others where appropriate.
Is objective but not insensitive in the approach to decision making.
Formulates, articulates and demonstrates sound clinical reasoning.
Communications and Interpersonal Skills
Demonstrates the communication skills (verbal & written) to effectively carry out the duties and responsibilities of the role.
Displays effective interpersonal skills, including the ability to collaborate with colleagues, service users, families, carers etc., to understand and establish expectations and desired outcomes.
Demonstrates sensitivity, diplomacy and tact when dealing with others, treating others with dignity and respect.
Is patient and tolerant when dealing with conflict or negative attitudes from others.
Demonstrates negotiation skills and assertiveness as appropriate.
Competition Specific Selection Process
Ranking/Shortlisting / Interview
A ranking and or shortlisting exercise may be carried out on the basis of information supplied in your application form. The criteria for ranking and or shortlisting are based on the requirements of the post as outlined in the eligibility criteria and skills, competencies and/or knowledge section of this job specification. Therefore it is very important that you think about your experience in light of those requirements.
Failure to include information regarding these requirements may result in you not being called forward to the next stage of the selection process.
Protection of Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act 1998
As this post is one of those designated under the Protection of Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act 1998, appointment to this post appoints one as a designated officer in accordance with Section 2 of the Act. You will remain a designated officer for the duration of your appointment to your current post or for the duration of your appointment to such other post as is included in the categories specified in the Ministerial Direction. You will receive full information on your responsibilities under the Act on appointment.
This job description is a guide to the general range of duties assigned to the post holder. It is intended to be neither definitive nor restrictive and is subject to periodic review with the employee concerned.
All informal enquiries in relation to the above should be directed to Ms Jillian Doyle, Senior Clinical Psychologist, and Ms Fiona Hanrahan, Director of Midwifery and Nursing,
Applications should be made via the recruitment portal and to include a current Curriculum Vitae and cover letter.
If you have any issues during the application process, please contact