Eliane Young - consultant clinical psychologist

What’s your role at CUH?

My name is Eliane Young and I am a Consultant clinical psychologist. I am privileged to work in two roles in the hospital spanning both child and adult psychological medicine services. I am the lead for psychological therapies across paediatric services where we have nearly 50 psychological therapists working with over 20 medical specialities.

We have worked hard to ensure diversity amongst our psychological provision and developed a large team comprising of clinical and counselling psychologists, counsellors, psychiatrists, family therapists, mental health practitioners, family support and youth workers. As the clinical lead my role is to supervise, support and develop the senior leaders responsible for the delivery of psychological services; ensuring clinical governance, effective and excellent clinical provision and development of practice, policies and procedures.

I also provide clinical supervision to senior nurse colleagues and am currently rolling out an innovative clinical supervision training programme for nurses and allied health professionals in Division E.

As a Consultant, my remit is to respond to the most complex cases and problems arising in the hospital; applying psychological thinking and approaches to organisational challenges and dilemmas. In my position I am able to influence, shape and manage the overall clinical care for children, young people and families in partnership with my psychology team, medical colleagues and the families using our services.

One that not only responds to the arising clinical need but also builds resilience in the children, young people and families coming into hospital; whilst also increasing psychological thinking and skills amongst our healthcare staff. In addition to offering this at CUH, I also oversee the provision of psychological services in Peterborough and Hinchingbrooke Hospitals.

Towards the end of the week I step into my role as the Clinical psychologist in the CUH Medical Haematology team working with adults. In this post I work with a wonderful, passionate and dedicated team of Consultants and Clinical nurse specialists providing care to adults with Sickle Cell Disease and a rare blood disorder called Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (TTP). Both conditions are life long, life threatening and require a close relationship between the patient and the medical team to optimise health, wellbeing and outcomes. My role here is to help to develop the already well established and highly effective medical services with regards to psychologically and trauma informed care, and to respond to the arising psychological needs of those using the service. To help with our understanding of these clinical problems and contribute to research based innovation, I have a doctorate research student looking into the cultural experiences of pain for black women with sickle cell disease and am setting up a research study looking into psychological aspects of transitioning into older age for people with sickle cell - many of whom were told they would not live past their 20s.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I have been a psychologist for some years now, but currently thrive on the development of psychological and trauma informed services. This involves close multidisciplinary team working and bringing psychological thinking to every aspect of clinical care. Through this approach, I believe we are able to further optimise outcomes for patients and provide holistic care. I enjoy working with complex systemic problems and using psychological models to help make sense of and shift these in a way that will ultimately benefit both patients and staff.

Tell us a bit about your CUH journey – when did you join, what positions have you held here and why you like working at CUH?

I joined CUH in 2018 as the psychological lead for lifespan cleft services in the East of England. I loved this post, working as part of a very large multidisciplinary team - helping patients with surgeries and living with visible difference. I still have two doctorate research students, now completing their research on patient, parent and professional’s decision making around elective cleft related surgery at the particularly poignant point of transition from child to adult (circa 16 years old). I became paediatric psychological lead in 2020, and started working with the adult Medical Haematology Team in 2022 when my youngest child had settled into school.

My role as a clinical psychologist allows me to work with many different teams and colleagues across CUH, and I feel privileged and humbled by the passion, dedication and excellent care I witness, especially when times are very tough.

What does a usual day look like?

In my paediatric post, my days are mostly filled with tasks of strategic leadership, service/professional development and clinical supervision. I hold a small caseload of direct clinical work, and these tend to be the more complex or highly sensitive clinical issues - I have a particular interest in working with complex and multiple traumas and attachment related difficulties; often these are multi-generational, requiring work with more than just the person referred.

I try to keep some flexibility in my days to allow me to respond to complex and urgent dilemmas as and when they arise in the hospital; being responsive in this way can prevent further deterioration and exacerbation of problems and reduce the overall stress in the system.

How do you feel your role benefits our patients?

Whether by developing services, overseeing the quality of clinical governance and care or by contributing at national level to initiatives, policies and papers. In my post as the clinical psychologist in Medical Haematology service I enjoy working closely with the medical team - by joining together we are able to achieve more than we could for our patients on our own.