Clinical associate psychologist

This is a new occupation, developed for implementation in England, introduced as part of a programme of work to provide greater access to psychologically informed mental health and wellbeing services. Clinical Associates in Psychology fill an identified skills gap between assistant psychologist and Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) registered practitioner psychologists. They are able to practice autonomously with appropriate support, working within their scope of practice, under the supervision of an appropriately registered HCPC practitioner psychologist. Where the term ‘patient’ is used in the standard it covers service users, clients or any individuals in receipt of psychological support and interventions.

The broad purpose of the occupation is to provide high quality, evidence based psychological interventions to inform practice, with formulations derived from specialist psychological measurement and assessment tools to work with populations across the lifespan from different backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. They work with specific populations and therefore provide a more proscribed range of activities than HCPC registered practitioner psychologists.

Clinical Associates in Psychology:

• are accountable professionals delivering psychological assessments, formulations, interventions and research within their scope of practice
• use applied service research and evaluation to inform interventions
• may work with and communicate with patients in their own home, their workplace, the community, hospital, secure environments, education or in any settings where their needs are supported and managed
• may work with individuals and groups with complex and long-term needs
• act as a psychological resource providing support, guidance and supervision using psychological models to the wider health, social care and professional teams
• provide training to others to inform psychological interventions
• use psychological measurement tools to evaluate psychological treatments and improve the quality of clinical practice
• complement the work of HCPC registered practitioner psychologists
• often deliver treatment interventions developed with a HCPC registered practitioner psychologist who will review their practice through supervision.
• provide a range of psychological treatments working within their scope of practice, whilst the supervising HCPC registered practitioner psychologist retains overall clinical responsibility for their work
• undertake research
• report to a HCPC registered practitioner psychologist in terms of psychological assessment, formulation and intervention.

Clinical Associates in Psychology work alongside existing psychological practitioners such as Assistant Psychologists, as well as Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners and High Intensity Therapists (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies-IAPT). Unlike practitioners within the IAPT portfolio (e.g. Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners and High Intensity Therapists), their work is informed, but not wholly determined, by problem-specific treatment protocols. For example, Clinical Associates in Psychology would draw upon the developing evidence-base to inform the management of psychological distress associated with multiple long-term conditions such as depression and physical impairment in dementia. They use applied service research and evaluation to formulate interventions which further sets this role apart from Assistant Psychologists, Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners and High Intensity CBT Practitioners.

In their daily work, an employee in this occupation may interact with:

• health and care professionals in a variety of service including nurses, social workers, allied health professionals (AHPs) and medical colleagues as part of a multidisciplinary team
• prison services, probation officers, youth justice workers, the police, courts and tribunals
• professionals in education settings such as schools and colleges
• occupational health teams
• sport and exercise professionals
• public health professionals
• the psychology team, alongside assistant psychologists and trainee practitioner psychologists, while reporting to a HCPC registered practitioner psychologist regarding psychological assessment, formulation and intervention
• Clinical Associates in Psychology may work outside of normal hours depending on the service requirements.

An employee in this occupation will be responsible for providing psychological assessment and interventions within their scope of practice across a range of service settings, such as in the workplace, community, hospital, or prison and including individual or group settings. Scope of practice is determined by a range of factors and defines the procedures, actions and processes that a CAP is qualified to deliver.

Clinical Associates in Psychology are responsible for:

• planning, delivering and evaluating psychological interventions which may include more long-term and complex presentations
• working with individuals or groups with long-term and complex needs
• acting as a psychological resource to the team
• managing their own caseload while undertaking their own clinical programmes of work, within their scope of practice
• seeing patients in their own homes, workplace, secure settings or in the community
• performing assessments as well as planning and evaluating their own psychological interventions
• conducting risk management assessments and evaluations
• their own learning and development using reflection and feedback to analyse their own capabilities
• ensuring that resources are managed effectively
• participating in the delivery of audit and service improvement projects
• engaging in their own Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to maintain and update their psychological scope of practice
• meeting their clinical psychology supervisor on a weekly basis in accordance with British Psychological Society (BPS) standards for accredited practice.