Registered managers · For providers
You cannot open without one. You cannot stay open without a good one.
The hardest appointment in the sector, and the one most often made in a hurry because the last person left on Friday. Tell us what the service needs and we will find somebody who can actually hold it.
What usually goes wrong
The vacancy is rarely the real problem
By the time most providers ring us the post has been empty for months, the rating has slipped, and the shortlist is people who will not survive the fit person interview. Each of these is fixable, but not at the same speed.
Timing
Nobody counted the registration
Finding somebody is not the same as having a registered manager in post. The application, the interview and the decision take time that nobody built into the plan, and the regulator is already asking who is running the service.
Fit
Appointed for the CV, not the service
Somebody excellent in a settled thirty-bed home is not automatically the right person for a service in special measures, and the other way round. They are different jobs with the same job title.
Retention
The post itself is the reason people leave
Accountability without the authority or the budget to match it. If the last three managers left inside two years, the fourth appointment will not fix it either — and we will say so.
Interview
A good candidate, unprepared
The fit person interview is passable and it is failable, and capable people fail it by turning up as though it were a formality. That delay lands on you, not on them.
Cover
Nothing in place for the gap
There is a legitimate way to run a service while an application is with the regulator, and there is a way that attracts enforcement. They look similar from the inside.
Cost
A percentage of salary, and no interest afterwards
A recruiter is paid when somebody starts. Whether they are still there in a year, and whether the first inspection under their name went well, is not their problem.
What we actually do
Fill it, register it, and make it survivable
We work with managers all year on registration, interviews and inspection, so the people we know are people we have already watched do the job.
01
Work out what the post actually needs
Service type, size, current rating, what state it is in and what the manager will be allowed to decide. Half an hour here changes who we look for.
02
Approach people directly
Quietly, and only people we would put our name to. No advert, no list, and nothing that tells your staff or your commissioners the post is open.
03
Prepare them for the interview
The application, the evidence and the fit person interview, done properly the first time. This is where most of the delay is, and it is the part we control best.
04
Keep the service safe in the meantime
Interim arrangements the regulator will accept, notifications made on time, and a plan for what you tell an inspector who asks who is in charge today.
If the post is empty because of what happened rather than who left — enforcement, a safeguarding investigation, a rating that has gone — start at turnaround instead. Recruiting into an unresolved problem wastes a good manager and six months.
Tell us about the post
It takes about two minutes. Two boxes are required and the rest simply help. Nothing is advertised, and nobody finds out the post is open from us.
We use this only to find you a manager. No list, no sharing, no chasing. See our privacy policy.
Before you recruit at all
The position check was written for managers, but run it about the post you are advertising. If the accountability and the authority do not line up, that is why the last one left.
Check the postOpening something new
If there is no service yet, the manager and the registration are the same piece of work and should be done together rather than in sequence.
Starting a serviceIf the post is empty right now
An unregistered service is a live regulatory problem, not an HR one, and the clock is already running. Ring rather than fill anything in.
020 3856 8549Someone answers, including out of hours.
07426 919823Text or WhatsApp.
Two ways to fill the post
Which one you need usually depends on how long the post has already been empty.
Executive search and headhunting
Registered managers, nominated individuals and senior operational staff — found by people who know what the role actually requires and can tell whether a CV means it.
Interim management
Cover while you recruit, or while a service is being stabilised. Tell us on the first call what you need the interim to be able to do, because the answer changes who is right.
Tell us what the service needs, not what the advert says.
Thirty minutes, no charge, no obligation. Bring the last inspection report if you have one — it tells us more about the post than any job description will.
Text or WhatsApp
07426 919823If it is easier to write it down than say it out loud, send a message.