Given the dramatically changing landscape of psychological professionals as a result of policy developments in England, Scotland and Wales, it is imperative that clinical psychologists are fully informed about how NHS services and clinical psychology as a profession will be affected.
In a new article, Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre’s (OCTC) Clinical Psychologist, Dr Sarah Lack explains the context for secondary accreditations (recognised therapy qualifications in addition to the DClinPsy) with a focus on the recognised multi-professional marker for competence in CBT, BABCP accreditation.
The article, CBT accreditation for clinical psychologists: A limitation or an opportunity to apply and maintain our organisational and systemic influence and leadership? is one of many papers on the topic of workforce development in the NHS included in a special edition of Clinical Psychology Forum, published by the British Psychological Society and guest edited by Dr Sarah Lack and Dr Adrian Whittington, National Clinical Lead for the Psychological Professions at NHS England.
The paper sets out the challenge faced in delivering the dramatic increase in NICE recommended therapies called for in NHS policy. A multi-professional workforce is required at all levels of the NHS from primary to specialist care and from community to acute care to meet this challenge, so how can psychologists be at the heart of service design and leadership during this important period of expansion, to help ensure that the NHS becomes more psychological?
“Multi-professional markers of competence in the therapies support this expansion by ensuring quality, consistency, and safety in the delivery. More clinical psychologists who can demonstrate such multi-professional markers supports greater access to evidence-based therapies in British populations, more credible supervision capacity within psychological professions and could help to place or maintain clinical psychologists in strategically influential roles for shaping a more psychological NHS.”
You can read and download for free the whole edition of the article that is published in the most recent edition of Clinical Psychology Forum.
How is Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre helping?
OCTC, which sits within Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, contributes to the narrative on NHS psychological professions workforce within its remit to provide specialised CBT teaching and training programmes to support expansion and diversify the group of psychological professions contributing to delivering evidence-based therapies.
OCTC has also delivered the cornerstone training within the workshop programme for the NHSE funded national CBT Top Up Programme which Sarah Lack led from 2021-2023 and which is now led by Senior Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist at OCTC, Amandeep Soomal. The programme helps DClinPsy supervisors become BABCP accredited.