Resources · For managers
Leaving a post without it following you.
Most of the damage a bad exit does is not done on the way out. It is done eighteen months later, in an application, in a reference, or in a question about a service you have not set foot in since.
Two endings, and they are not the same one
Resigning ends your employment. It does not, on its own, end your registration.
These are separate acts with separate paperwork, and the second one does not happen automatically because the first one did. A manager who hands in notice, works it, hands over the keys and hears nothing more can still be the registered manager of that service months afterwards.
That matters because the registration is a statement that you are the person accountable for how the service is run. Leaving it attached to a building you no longer visit, run by people you no longer speak to, is not a filing error. It is a claim about you that is no longer true.
Deal with it deliberately, in writing, and keep the confirmation. Do not assume the provider has done it, and do not assume silence means it is done. Providers forget, and a provider in difficulty forgets more.
Before you resign
The position check plots what you are accountable for against what you can actually decide. Managers most often run it about a new post. It is at least as useful run about the one you are leaving.
Three things that follow you, and one that does not
Nobody warns you about the first three. Everybody worries about the fourth.
The gap
Six months unexplained on an application invites a question, and the question is always asked at the least convenient moment. A short, plain, unembarrassed account written down now is far better than a reconstruction attempted two years later.
The handover you did not document
If the service goes downhill after you leave, the line between what you left behind and what happened afterwards is drawn from records. If there is no record of the state you left it in, the line gets drawn somewhere less flattering.
The reference nobody chases
References from providers that have since been sold, dissolved or taken into administration are difficult to obtain and sometimes impossible. Ask while there is still somebody there who remembers you and has authority to sign.
The fourth thing is the rating. A service rated poorly after you leave is not automatically your problem, and inspectors are generally realistic about timelines. What turns it into your problem is being unable to show what you handed over.
A leaving pack, written for you and not for them
Half a day's work while you still have access, and it answers every question you will be asked afterwards.
Write a short handover note that states the position on the day you left. Staffing, open actions, anything outstanding with the regulator or the local authority, and anything you raised that was not resolved. One page is enough. It is a snapshot, not a defence.
Keep your own copy of the things that are about you rather than about the service. Your supervision records, your training certificates, correspondence in which you raised a concern, and anything you have signed. These are ordinary professional records and there is nothing furtive about keeping them.
Confirm the registration position in writing before your last day, and again after it if you have heard nothing. Keep whatever confirmation you get.
Do not take anything that identifies a person who uses the service. Not a care plan, not a photograph, not an incident form with a name on it. A manager who leaves with resident records has turned a good exit into a serious one, whatever the intention was.
Leaving badly is usually a timing problem
Very few bad exits are caused by bad intent. They are caused by leaving in a hurry, at the end of something exhausting, with nothing written down because there was no time.
If you are close to that point, the useful conversation is the one before the resignation letter, not the one after it.
Ring us before it is urgent. It is a much shorter conversation.
Thirty minutes, no charge, no obligation, and nothing said on it goes anywhere. Plenty of managers ring us long before they are ready to move, and that is the right time to do it.
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07426 919823If it is easier to write it down than say it out loud, send a message.