Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP) Manager
Spectrum Life · Full-time · Posted 5d ago
About us:
This is a dual-function role — 50% clinical and 50% operational — reporting into both the Head of Operations (solid line) and the Clinical Director (dotted line). This structure reflects the clinical reality of PWP management and is required for NHS Talking Therapies compliance.
While the primary focus of this role is the PWP team, the postholder may also carry line management responsibility for other clinical staff including counsellors, high intensity CBT therapists, and psychologists.
This role exists to:
Training: The initial training period will run for 2 weeks. Responsibilities: Clinical (50%)
Supervision and Case Management
Operational (50%)
Service Performance
Essential Experience:
Essential Knowledge and Skills:
Spectrum.Life is a whole-of-health digital partner that guides organisations and their people to thrive, delivering clinically backed digital health, mental health and wellbeing solutions.
Our HealthTech delivers digital transformation for Insurers, Educators and Employers through Co-creation or seamlessly integrated out-of-the-box solutions, that decrease digital fragmentation and engage, empower, and transform their people’s lives.
Established in 2018 by Stuart McGoldrick and Stephen Costello, Spectrum.Life provides services internationally to over 7.2m insurance members, 3,000 corporate clients, 60 universities and 650,000 university students. Spectrum.Life currently employs over 450 people.
Our vision is to change and save as many lives as possible.
This is a dual-function role — 50% clinical and 50% operational — reporting into both the Head of Operations (solid line) and the Clinical Director (dotted line). This structure reflects the clinical reality of PWP management and is required for NHS Talking Therapies compliance.
While the primary focus of this role is the PWP team, the postholder may also carry line management responsibility for other clinical staff including counsellors, high intensity CBT therapists, and psychologists.
This role exists to:
- Ensure PWPs practise safely, competently, and within the tightly defined PWP scope of practice set out by the NHS Talking Therapies Manual (2023), NICE guidelines, and BABCP accreditation standards.
- Provide direct clinical supervision and case management — a core function of this role, not a delegated activity.
- Manage the operational performance of the PWP team against NHS Talking Therapies access and quality targets.
- Act as the clinical safety net for the team, ensuring risk is appropriately assessed, managed, and escalated.
- Bridge clinical and operational functions at team level, ensuring service pressure never compromises clinical integrity.
Training: The initial training period will run for 2 weeks. Responsibilities: Clinical (50%)
Supervision and Case Management
- Provide weekly group case management meetings to the PWP team, with each PWP receiving a minimum of one hour of supervision per week.
- Provide individual clinical supervision proportionate to each PWP's experience level and caseload risk profile.
- Structure supervision to cover active case review, outcome data (PHQ-9, GAD-7, WSAS), risk and safety planning, and treatment fidelity.
- Maintain accurate supervision records in line with BABCP and NHS Talking Therapies requirements.
- Act as the named clinical point of contact for active risk cases, supporting PWPs in real time when safety concerns arise.
- Ensure robust risk escalation pathways are in place and consistently applied, including step-up to high-intensity (Step 3), safeguarding, and emergency response.
- Review and co-sign risk management plans for high-risk cases managed at Step 2.
- Act as the designated safeguarding lead for the PWP team.
- Maintain active oversight of each PWP's practice to ensure adherence to the PWP scope of practice.
- Identify and address scope drift — both over-scope and under-scope — proactively.
- Monitor outcome data at individual and team level and use this to inform supervision and quality improvement.
- Identify CPD needs and develop personal development plans for each PWP.
- Support newly qualified PWPs through their consolidation period with increased supervision intensity.
- Facilitate peer learning through reflective practice sessions and skills development workshops.
Operational (50%)
Service Performance
- Manage the team's performance against NHS Talking Therapies access and quality indicators including waiting times, recovery rates, and stepped care rates.
- Monitor caseload capacity and ensure equitable distribution of referrals across the team.
- Contribute to regular performance reporting for operational and clinical governance purposes.
- Manage day-to-day HR functions including recruitment, induction, sickness absence, annual leave, and performance management.
- Conduct annual appraisals integrating clinical quality and operational performance goals.
- Manage rotas and resource allocation to ensure consistent service delivery.
- While the primary focus is the PWP team, the postholder may also carry line management responsibility for other clinical staff including counsellors, high intensity CBT therapists, and psychologists.
- Ensure the team operates in accordance with GDPR, NHS Information Governance, and Spectrum.Life clinical governance frameworks.
- Contribute to clinical audit, service evaluation, and quality improvement initiatives.
- Act as the primary operational point of contact for commissioners, referrers, and partner agencies.
- Work collaboratively with the broader clinical team to ensure smooth step-up and step-down processes.
- BABCP accreditation as a PWP or BABCP accreditation as a High Intensity CBT therapist.
- Formal training in low intensity CBT interventions, including guided self-help, behavioural activation, worry management, structured problem solving, and/or sleep restriction.
- Completion of a recognised PWP Supervisor Training Programme (NHS Talking Therapies-aligned).
- Where degree-level entry: minimum undergraduate degree (2:1 or above) or equivalent professional experience.
Essential Experience:
- Minimum 3 years post-qualification experience as a practising PWP across the full Step 2 range; or for BABCP-accredited HI CBT therapist applicants, minimum 2 years direct experience delivering low intensity CBT interventions within an NHS Talking Therapies Step 2 service.
- Minimum 12 months experience providing clinical supervision or case management to PWPs, either formally or informally.
- Demonstrable experience of managing clinical risk at Step 2 and working within stepped care escalation pathways.
- Experience of working within an NHS Talking Therapies or equivalent IAPT-compliant service, with working knowledge of IAPT-standard outcome measures and data requirements.
- Experience of managing caseloads, supervising others' caseloads, or contributing to service performance management.
Essential Knowledge and Skills:
- Expert-level knowledge of the NHS Talking Therapies Manual (2023) and stepped care model.
- Strong working knowledge of NICE guidelines relevant to common mental health conditions (CG90/CG91, CG113, NG116) and their application at Step 2.
- Knowledge of BABCP accreditation standards for PWPs and PWP supervisors.
- Competency in delivering and overseeing the full range of NICE-recommended low-intensity CBT interventions.
- Ability to conduct and oversee robust clinical risk assessments, including suicide and self-harm risk, and to support others in doing so.
- Strong communication skills — ability to translate clinical complexity into operationally actionable information and vice versa.
- Competency in using outcome monitoring data (PHQ-9, GAD-7, WSAS) to inform clinical supervision and service quality improvement.
- Experience in a formal management or senior clinical role (PWP, High Intensity CBT therapist, or equivalent) within an NHS Talking Therapies Step 2 or stepped care service.
- Completed BABCP PWP Supervisor Accreditation.
- Knowledge of digital and telephone-based delivery models for low-intensity interventions.
- Experience contributing to workforce development, training design, or competency-based assessment frameworks.
- Familiarity with NHS Talking Therapies data reporting tools.
- Experience working in a third sector, independent sector, or commissioned NHS Talking Therapies service.
- In addition to professional competency, the PWP Manager is expected to demonstrate the following:
- Clinical humility — recognition that clinical supervision is a skilled, learnable activity that must be pursued with the same rigour as direct clinical practice.
- Commitment to psychological safety — creating conditions where PWPs can bring their most difficult cases, disclose errors, and ask questions without fear of judgement.
- Equity and inclusion — active attention to the needs of diverse patient populations and culturally competent clinical practice within the PWP team.
- Data literacy — using outcome data and supervision records as genuine quality improvement tools, not as performance management levers.
- Collaborative leadership — working openly across the clinical/operational boundary and modelling effective joint working for the broader organisation.
- Commitment to the NHS Talking Therapies evidence base — maintaining fidelity to the low-intensity model as defined in the Manual and NICE guidance, and challenging drift proactively.
- Competitive salary (Dependent on experience).
- Remote Working
- 25 days annual leave
- 24/7 EAP and a wide range of health and wellbeing support
- The opportunity to work in a strengths based and inclusive way and contribute to a bigger shift in changing societal attitudes towards mental health and wellbeing
- Remote Supervision
- Opportunities to develop your skills and expertise through learning and training
- The chance to contribute to the development and shaping of a new and exciting service
- Extensive list of employee perks and benefits: https://app.box.com/s/6wwkvowbev6cn7tlvq9yz32amnpmnvcl
- Weekly individual clinical case management supervision meeting, minimum one hour, aligned to NHS Talking Therapies Manual requirements
- Structured CPD programme with protected time for professional development and BABCP / BPS registration maintenance
- Technology that works with you; digital infrastructure designed to support clinical delivery and reduce administrative burden
- Clear stepped care governance with no ambiguity about your scope of practice
- A team led by clinical leaders with deep NHS Talking Therapies and IAPT experience, people who understand what it means to do this work well
- Opportunity to help shape a new model of evidence-based EAP care that could influence how low-intensity therapy is delivered at scale
United States