Salford neuropsychology post links stroke rehabilitation and outpatient brain injury care
Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust is recruiting a clinical psychologist for a split post spanning community stroke and neurorehabilitation work alongside outpatient traumatic brain injury services. The vacancy brings together two settings that often sit at the center of long-term recovery: one focused on neurological disability across a broad community caseload, the other embedded in outpatient follow-up for people living with the cognitive, emotional, and functional consequences of head injury.
The appointment is structured as 0.65 whole time equivalent in the Salford Community Neurorehabilitation Service and 0.35 whole time equivalent in the Salford Outpatient Traumatic Brain Injury Service. For psychologists with an interest in neuropsychology, the post is designed to combine direct assessment and intervention with service-level work inside a multidisciplinary team. The advert makes clear that the role would suit an autonomous clinician able to organize competing demands while remaining embedded in a broader neuropsychology department with senior supervision and peer support.
Neuropsychological input across stroke, acquired brain injury, and traumatic brain injury
The community arm of the role centers on neuropsychologically informed assessments, formulations, and interventions for people referred to the community neurorehabilitation service for MDT input. The patient population includes individuals with stroke and acquired brain injury, two groups in which cognitive change, emotional distress, reduced insight, fatigue, and adjustment problems can shape every part of rehabilitation. In practice, the psychologist’s work is likely to sit at the intersection of cognition, behavior, family adjustment, and recovery planning.
A single outpatient encounter can alter the course of rehabilitation when a hidden cognitive deficit or psychological barrier is identified early.
The post also includes responsibility for supporting the MDT through training, monitoring outcomes with clients, and contributing to research, audit, and service evaluation. Those functions matter because neurorehabilitation rarely succeeds through therapy alone. Outcomes depend on how consistently a team can recognize cognitive impairment, adapt communication, support self-management, and coordinate care across services that often run in parallel rather than in sequence. In that setting, the psychologist becomes both clinician and educator, translating neuropsychological principles into decisions that other team members can use at the bedside or in the clinic room.
Outpatient TBI clinics sit within a wider major trauma psychology service
The outpatient portion of the post is attached to the Traumatic Brain Injury service and sits within the wider Major Trauma Psychology team at Salford Royal. Appointments in this clinic will predominantly involve people who have suffered a TBI, although the service also sees patients from other outpatient neuropsychology pathways. That mixed caseload suggests a need for flexibility, since post-injury presentations can range from relatively circumscribed cognitive complaints to more complex combinations of neurobehavioral change, mood symptoms, and difficulties with return to work, relationships, and daily function.
A brain injury clinic is never just about the scan or the injury date; it is about the aftermath that unfolds in memory, mood, and behavior.
The structure of the role implies that non-clinical administrative time is built into the outpatient component, which is important in psychology services where documentation, coordination, and outcome monitoring are part of the clinical workload rather than detached tasks. The requirement to balance outpatient clinics with administrative duties also reflects the realities of rehabilitation medicine, where careful formulation and follow-through often matter as much as the intervention itself.
Banding, training support, and supervision shape the appointment
The post is open at band 7 or band 8a, with the higher band reserved for candidates who have completed and passed one academic year of the PGDip in Clinical Neuropsychology. For a band 7 appointment, the trust says it would support an application for NHS England funding to begin the first year of the PGDip in Neuropsychology and provide study time during teaching blocks. That training pathway is central to the advert because the service is clearly looking for someone who can grow into specialist neuropsychology work rather than simply perform a static clinical role.
The advertisement also notes that NHS England funding has been available in recent years but is not guaranteed. In practical terms, that places some uncertainty around formal funding support, even as the service expresses an intention to help applicants pursue specialist training. For a clinician at an early stage of neuropsychology development, that combination of supervision and conditional funding support may be a decisive part of the offer.
Supervision would come from experienced clinical neuropsychologists, and the post is framed as an opportunity to expand knowledge and experience across a broad range of conditions. The trust says the successful applicant would join one of the largest neuropsychology teams in the country, with supervision structure, peer support, and continuing professional development opportunities available across inpatient, outpatient, and community settings. In workforce terms, that breadth suggests a service capable of exposing a clinician to more than a single diagnostic stream, which is often essential in neurorehabilitation where case complexity rarely follows neat boundaries.
Salford’s broader service footprint explains the scale of the role
The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust provides hospital and integrated health and social care services to more than one million people across Greater Manchester. Its workforce of about 20,000 colleagues serves Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, and Salford, which gives context to the scale at which neurorehabilitation services operate in the region. The trust emphasizes care, appreciation, and inspiration as its core values, but the practical significance of the post lies in the service model itself: psychological care delivered across community and outpatient settings, connected to major trauma pathways and multidisciplinary rehabilitation.
For patients, that model can mean access to psychological assessment closer to the point of need rather than being diverted into a disconnected referral chain. For clinicians, it creates a post where direct patient work, MDT teaching, and service development are part of the same job rather than separate roles. The advert also invites informal discussion with consultant clinical neuropsychologists, reinforcing that the role is being recruited as part of a specialist service infrastructure rather than as an isolated vacancy.
The closing date for the post is 22 October 2026. The strongest clinical signal in the advertisement is not the title alone, but the way the service combines community stroke rehabilitation, acquired brain injury care, and outpatient TBI management into one integrated neuropsychology role. That combination demands therapeutic skill, diagnostic discipline, and comfort with long-tail rehabilitation needs that often outlast the acute neurological event itself.