Psychological profession roles

About 

The NHS Long Term Plan, alongside the growth of Mental Health Support Teams for schools, requires an unprecedented growth in the psychological professions. It is anticipated that this workforce of psychologists, psychological therapists and psychological practitioners needs to grow by over 60% from the 2019 baseline by 2024, contributing a third of the overall growth required in the mental health workforce. 

Across NHS mental health services in England, an estimated 27,000 (WTE) new mental health posts will be needed to deliver the NHS Long Term Plan, in addition to increase demand arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and the growth that was already being delivered under Stepping Forward to 2020/21. This includes a significant and rapid expansion in the psychological professions’ workforce, growing not only established professions like clinical psychologists, but also embedding new roles. 

The psychological professions include psychologists, psychological therapists and psychological practitioners and are represented nationally and regionally by psychological professions leadership. Art, drama and music therapists often identify as both allied health professions (AHPs) and psychological professionals. Art, drama and music therapists will continue to be represented by AHP leadership nationally and regionally. Psychological Professions and AHP leadership are committed to working together to ensure these professions thrive. 

Taxonomy  

Psychologists 

• clinical psychologists  
• counselling psychologists 
• forensic psychologists 
• health psychologists 

Associate and Assistant Roles  

• clinical associate in psychology  
• assistant psychologist 

Psychological therapists 

• cognitive behavioural therapists 
• counsellors 
• child and adolescent psychotherapists 
• adult psychotherapists 
• family and systemic psychotherapists 
• psychological therapists (other) 
• art, drama and music therapists with AHP professional leadership 

Psychological practitioners 

• psychological wellbeing practitioners 
• children’s wellbeing practitioner 
• education mental health practitioner 
• mental health and wellbeing practitioner 
• youth intensive psychological practitioner  

New psychological professional roles - 2022 

The psychological profession workforce has seen significant innovation in the past few years, with the creation of a number of new roles, including education mental health practitioners, children’s wellbeing practitioners and, more recently, Clinical Associates in Psychology, Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioners and Youth Intensive Psychological Practitioner roles. 

These new roles are playing a key role in supporting the development and expansion of important new service pathways and numbers of staff in these roles are set to grow rapidly over the next few years. 

Mental health and wellbeing practitioners 

Adults with severe mental health problems, perinatal mental health problems and drugs and alcohol mental health problems will benefit from the support of new Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioners as health and care services across England aspire to increase the number of individuals trained in the role over the coming years. By doing so, this will help create much needed additional capacity in the team, including capacity for other team members to deliver more psychological therapies.

Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioners work with patients to help them manage their mental health, coordinate care, helping people access the best possible community and professional resources while also offering evidence-based psychological interventions.   Multi-disciplinary teams will be key to the success of community mental health transformation. We are excited to welcome the role of a Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner to one of these teams.

The first intake of trainees started their training in March 2022. The one-year training programme will see them, under supervision, develop knowledge and practice skills to employ wellbeing-focused psychologically informed interventions and care planning for adults with severe mental health problems. They will work alongside other established and new roles in the multi-disciplinary team.  

Mental health and wellbeing practitioner resources: 

• Mental health and wellbeing practitioner training curriculum (to view this document please see the related documents section below)
• Trainee mental health and wellbeing practitioner job description 
• Qualified mental health and wellbeing practitioner job description
• Mental health and wellbeing practitioner: a guide to practice - if you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: mentalhealth@hee.nhs.uk.  

For more information, visit the Health Careers website, psychological therapies for severe mental health problems webpage or contact mentalhealth@hee.nhs.uk.  

Hear from a Mental Health Wellbeing Practitioner and her Service Manager

Watch our film, in which MHWP Martha Miles talks about the vital work she does and Community Mental Health Service Manager, Eleanor Duke talks about how adopting the role has benefited their organisation, their teams and their service users.

Adrian Whittington, National Lead for Psychological Professions -  NHS Improvement, said:

“We are pleased to launch this new role. MHWPs, as part of a team, will make an important difference to people with severe mental health problems, offering psychologically informed interventions that people may have found hard to access before. Additional support from this specific role is intended to free up capacity for experienced senior healthcare professionals to spend additional time on complex care and treatment, and access further development opportunities themselves.”     

Youth intensive psychological practitioners 

Health Education England and NHS England and NHS Improvement have launched a new psychological profession's pilot role: youth intensive psychological practitioner (YIPP).   

YIPPs will have a salaried and funded training pathway while working as part of a multi-disciplinary team, under the supervision of a clinical psychologist, supporting young people (aged 13-17 years old) across both inpatient and intensive home treatment team services.   

Supporting the increase in psychological professions staff required, as set out in the NHS Long Term Plan, a small pilot cohort of 29 trainee YIPPs commenced their training programmes in March 2022.  During the one-year postgraduate certificate with the University of Exeter, YIPPs will develop knowledge and skills to provide young people with psychological assessment and psychologically informed interventions aligned with the competence framework for children and young people's mental health inpatient services.   

YIPPs are an additional role and will give experienced senior healthcare professionals more capacity to access higher-level training and deliver complex care to young people with complex mental health needs.  

For more information, visit the Health Careers website or contact mentalhealth@hee.nhs.uk.  

Antonio, Young Adviser, said:     

“Being involved in shaping the YIPP role is a tremendous honour. As an individual with lived experience, I know how much impact the new YIPP role withholds in supporting young people in crisis and recovery with severe and complex needs. I wish it had existed before.  

"From another perspective, as a psychology student, the YIPP role remains firmly on my mind as a potential career option in the future."  

Psychological profession career resources 

Health Careers  

The NHS Health Careers website has a section dedicated to the psychological professions. It informs individuals about the different psychological profession roles, training, latest vacancies, FAQs, pay and benefits amongst other areas. 

Psychological Professions Network career map 

The Psychological Professions Network in England has developed a career map about the career opportunities in the NHS psychological professions. 

HEE Roles Explorer 

The HEE Roles Explorer is a collection of resources to support those responsible for planning and delivering workforce redesign. This resource can now be used when introducing new psychological profession roles, or innovative adaptations to existing roles already being deployed within a service or system. For those delivering workforce redesign, the HEE Roles Explorer is designed to: 

• provide inspiration and alternatives when designing the optimum skill mix 
• explore the capabilities, training requirements and career frameworks for different roles 
• support you to choose the best fit for your service model 
• develop new staffing models to fit new ways of delivering care 
• provide a range of resources to support the introduction of new role