Registered Manager – Domiciliary Care
Location: Hemel Hempstead, with regular visits to clients' homes
Salary: £40,000 – £45,000 per annum, depending on experience, inclusive of on-call participation
Contract: Full-time, Permanent
About Axiom Home Care
Axiom Home Care is a CQC-registered domiciliary care provider based in Hemel Hempstead, delivering care at home across Dacorum for Hertfordshire County Council and private clients. We are part of the Axiom Care Group alongside The Old Rectory residential home.
We are looking for a Registered Manager to lead the service: someone who leads from the front, knows what good looks like, and builds a culture where staff feel supported and families feel heard.
You will have fully digital care planning, rostering, policy and audit systems from leading providers, an in-house training facilitator, and a Provider who is present, engaged and invested in quality. Your role will be to run a safe, honest, well-led service and grow it.
The Role
As Registered Manager, you will be responsible for the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led delivery of domiciliary care. You will lead the staff team, maintain high standards of care and compliance, develop relationships with clients and families, and support the continued growth of the service.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership and culture
- Provide visible, calm and consistent leadership so staff feel able to seek advice, report concerns, admit mistakes and ask for support.
- Hold staff to account fairly through supervision, appraisal and honest feedback delivered respectfully.
- Provide stable leadership and clear escalation during any absence of the Provider.
Care quality and records
- Ensure every client has an accurate, person-centred care plan and risk assessments on the digital care system, reviewed following any change in need.
- Ensure care records, competency sign-offs and audit findings accurately reflect what has actually been done, seen and checked.
- Complete the monthly audit programme, including home-based checks, recording findings honestly and raising actions with owners and dates.
Clients and families
- Visit every client and their family and maintain a schedule of review visits.
- Build strong relationships with the people the service supports.
- Handle complaints and concerns patiently by listening fully, clarifying, summarising, acting and following up in writing.
Staffing, training and competency
- Lead safer recruitment, induction, supervision and annual appraisal in line with policy.
- Own the training matrix with the Training Facilitator.
- Ensure staff allocated to specialist care have completed the required training and have had their practical competency verified and documented.
- Carry out and record spot checks and field observations in person.
New care packages
- Apply a pre-commencement checklist to every new or significantly changed package.
- Ensure assessment, care planning, risk assessments, trained and competency-assessed staff, checked rotas, family introductions and contingency arrangements are in place before care starts.
- Escalate immediately any unresolved risk, including risks that could prevent a package commencing safely.
Safeguarding and risk
- Act as safeguarding lead for the service.
- Recognise, act on and refer safeguarding concerns.
- Embed the Mental Capacity Act in daily practice.
- Maintain the service risk register.
- Ensure incidents, accidents and near misses are reported, investigated and learned from.
Compliance and inspection
- Maintain compliance with CQC fundamental standards.
- Lead the service through CQC, PAMMS and TIMS inspections.
- Own the Service Improvement Plan and quality matrices, ensuring every item marked as met is supported by named evidence.
Business development and operations
- Monitor Hertfordshire County Council brokerage and attend contract meetings.
- Grow private client work.
- Manage the office, rostering and on-call arrangements.
- Participate in the on-call rota.
What We Offer
- £40,000 – £45,000 per annum depending on experience, inclusive of participation in the on-call rota.
- A quality infrastructure that is already built.
- Direct access to the Provider and quality support.
- The opportunity to shape a growing service within the Axiom Care Group.
Essential Requirements
You will need:
- Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Adult Care, achieved, or enrolled with completion within 18 months.
- Experience managing, or deputising in, a CQC-regulated adult social care service, ideally domiciliary care.
- Working knowledge of the CQC fundamental standards, the Single Assessment Framework and Registered Manager responsibilities.
- A track record of audits that identify issues and lead to evidenced actions, with the ability to explain what a credible audit looks like.
- Accurate and honest record keeping, with an understanding that care records, competency sign-offs and audits must reflect only what was actually done, seen and checked.
- Confident and patient communication with clients and families, including difficult conversations and complaints.
- Experience providing approachable and consistent leadership to care staff, including supervision, appraisal and creating a culture where staff can raise concerns.
- Experience of safely commencing new care packages, including assessment, care planning and verification of staff training and competency before deployment.
- Sound knowledge of safeguarding adults, the Mental Capacity Act and when and how to escalate.
- A practical plan for the first 90 days in post.
- A full UK driving licence and access to a vehicle for work.
Desirable Experience
- Experience of local authority commissioning and brokerage, ideally with Hertfordshire County Council.
- Experience with digital care management, rostering and policy systems.
- Experience growing private-pay home care alongside commissioned work.
Registration and Pre-Employment Checks
The successful candidate will apply to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to become the Registered Manager for the service and must meet the fit and proper persons requirement under Regulation 7. Axiom will support the application, and appointment is conditional on CQC registration being achieved.
The appointment is also subject to:
- Enhanced DBS check for the adult workforce and registration with the DBS Update Service.
- Two satisfactory references, including the most recent employer, verified before starting.
- Unrestricted right to work in the UK.
- CQC Registered Manager interview and approval.
Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
Selection Process
The recruitment process consists of two stages.
Stage One – Interview and practical scenarios
- Audit review
- Difficult family conversation
- Mock inspection questions
Stage Two
- Short presentation covering your first 90 days
- Meeting the team
- Verification of qualifications, references and right to work.
Safeguarding
Axiom Home Care is committed to safeguarding and this role operates under safer recruitment practice.
