The short version
The first ninety days in a registered manager role set the pattern for everything that follows. Whether you've just been registered for a new service, taken over an existing one, or stepped up internally, the early weeks are when you build the understanding and the systems that determine whether the role feels under control or perpetually on the back foot.
This is a practical checklist, organised by what to do in roughly the first month, the first two months, and the first three months. It's written from the perspective of someone who inspected a lot of services and could usually tell, within the first hour, whether the registered manager had got their early weeks right.
Why the first 90 days matter
A registered manager who spends the first ninety days genuinely understanding the service, its risks, its records, its team, its history, builds a foundation that holds. A registered manager who spends the first ninety days firefighting without ever stepping back to understand the whole picture tends to stay in firefighting mode indefinitely, always responding to the latest problem and never getting ahead of the next one.
The difference isn't effort. Both work hard. The difference is whether the early effort goes into understanding the service as a system, or only into handling whatever lands on the desk that day.
The first month: understand what you've taken on
Read the last inspection report cover to cover. Whatever CQC last said about the service is your starting map. What were the ratings? What did the report say was good? What did it say needed to improve? If there was an action plan, where does it stand? You're inheriting whatever the service did or didn't do in response.
Understand your registration. What is the service registered for? What are the conditions, if any? What's in scope and what isn't? A registered manager who doesn't know the limits of their own registration can drift outside them without realising.
Walk the records. Pull the incident log, the safeguarding log, the complaints log, the risk register, the action plan, the supervision records. Don't just check they exist, read them. What's the volume? What's open? What's overdue? What patterns jump out? This is the single most valuable thing you can do in the first month, because it tells you the actual state of the service rather than the state people tell you it's in.
Meet the team, and listen. Meet every member of staff you can. Ask them what works, what doesn't, what they'd change, what they're worried about. The team knows where the problems are; your job in the first month is to find out what they know.
Understand the current risks. What's the service's risk picture right now? What's the biggest thing that could go wrong this week? A new registered manager who can answer that question has done the work; one who can't, hasn't yet.
Clarify your CQC registration position. Do not assume that being appointed internally means CQC has already registered you. If you are stepping into the role, check whether the registered manager application has been submitted, what stage it is at, whether the DBS check and references are complete, and whether the fit-person interview is still to be arranged. Registration can take months, especially where DBS checks or local-team capacity create delay.
Establish the CQC relationship deliberately. If there is an open matter with CQC, a delayed application, a registration condition, or a major service change, ask for a conversation with the local team or the allocated inspector. CQC will not run the service for you, but constructive quality engagement is part of the relationship. Providers pay fees and can reasonably expect a clear route for enquiries, a professional response, and guidance on how CQC's processes work. Separately, understand your notification obligations from day one, because those duties do not wait for a quiet week.
The first two months: find the gaps
Test the records against reality. In the first month you read the records; in the second, test whether they reflect what actually happens. Pick a few incidents and walk the full chain, the initial record, the investigation, the action, the change to practice. Does the chain hold, or does it break somewhere? Where it breaks is where the service has a gap.
Check the cross-references. Does the safeguarding log match what the local authority would have on file? Does the action plan reflect the findings from incidents and complaints? Do the governance meeting minutes show the risks being discussed? Gaps between what should connect are the gaps an inspector finds.
Review staffing and training. Is the service adequately staffed for what it does? Is mandatory training up to date? Are there competence gaps? Is supervision actually happening, or is it overdue?
Look at the things that expire. Policies, insurance, registrations, DBS checks, professional registrations. What's in date? What's about to expire? Expired documents are an avoidable inspection finding and a real operational risk.
Form your own view of the well-led question. By the end of the second month you should have a clear, honest answer to: is this service genuinely well run, and can I evidence it? If the answer is "it's well run but I can't evidence it," that's a specific, fixable problem. If the answer is "I'm not sure it's well run," that's a more serious finding that needs a plan.
The first three months: build the system
Close the gaps you found. By month three, the gaps you identified in months one and two should have a plan. Not necessarily all fixed, some take longer, but each one named, owned, and on a trajectory.
Establish the rhythm. A well-run service runs on a rhythm: incidents investigated within a window, complaints acknowledged and resolved, supervision on a cadence, audits on a cycle, risks reviewed regularly, the action plan tracked. By month three, that rhythm should be established or being established, so the service runs to a tempo rather than lurching from event to event.
Make sure the records run at the same tempo as the work. This is the thing I'd most want a new registered manager to get right. The records side of the service should run at the same pace as the operational side, so that at any moment, what's recorded reflects what's happening. A service where the records lag the reality by weeks is a service that will struggle at an unannounced inspection, because the inspector arrives in the gap between what happened and what's been written down.
Set up your own oversight. How will you know, week to week, what needs your attention? What's your dashboard, literal or mental, of the service's state? By month three you should have a way of seeing the whole picture regularly, rather than only seeing the parts that escalate to you.
From the inspector's chair: what the good ones did
When I inspected a service with a registered manager who'd been in post for a few months, I could usually tell quickly whether they'd used the early weeks well.
The ones who had could walk me through their service specifically, its risks, its recent history, where it was strong, where it needed work, and what they were doing about it. They'd inherited whatever they'd inherited, but they'd understood it and taken ownership. Even where the service had problems, a registered manager who could say "here's the issue, here's how I found it, here's my plan" reassured me far more than one who claimed everything was fine.
The ones who hadn't tended to be vague. They described the service in general terms, couldn't quite say what the main risks were, and hadn't yet got underneath the records to see the real state. They weren't bad people or lazy, they'd usually been firefighting since day one. But they'd never stepped back to understand the service as a whole, and it showed.
If you take one thing from this: in your first ninety days, protect the time to understand the service as a system, not just to handle what lands on your desk. The firefighting will always be there. The understanding only gets built if you make room for it early.
How Verivius helps
For a new registered manager, Verivius is most useful precisely in these first ninety days. It gives you, in one place, the records you need to understand, incidents, complaints, safeguarding, notifications, risks, actions, supervision, with the state of each visible at a glance. Instead of hunting through spreadsheets and shared drives to piece together the state of the service, you can see it.
The "requires attention" view surfaces what needs you now. The audit trail shows you the history of each record so you can test whether the chains hold. And once you've established the rhythm, the platform maintains it, so the records run at the same tempo as the work, which is exactly the state you're trying to reach by month three.
Frequently asked questions
What should a new registered manager do first?
Read the last inspection report, understand the service's registration and conditions, and walk the records, incidents, safeguarding, complaints, risks, the action plan. Understanding the actual state of the service is the most valuable thing you can do in the first weeks, and it's the foundation for everything that follows.
How long does it take to get on top of a registered manager role?
It varies by the size and state of the service, but the first ninety days is a reasonable horizon for understanding what you've taken on and establishing the systems to run it. Getting fully on top of it, having the rhythm established and the gaps closed, often takes longer, but the foundation should be built in the first three months.
What if I inherit a service with problems?
Name them, own them, and build a plan. A registered manager who can show "here's the issue, here's how I found it, here's what I'm doing about it" is in a strong position even when the service has real problems. What matters is that you've understood the problems and are addressing them, not that you inherited a perfect service, which is rare.
Should I change everything in the first 90 days?
No. Spend the early weeks understanding before changing. A new registered manager who reorganises everything in week one, before understanding why things are the way they are, often breaks things that were working for reasons they hadn't yet grasped. Understand first; change deliberately.
How do I know if the service is well-led?
By the end of your first couple of months you should be able to answer honestly: is this service genuinely well run, and can I evidence it? Test the records against reality, check the cross-references, and form your own view. If it's well run but you can't evidence it, that's a fixable problem. If you're not sure it's well run, that needs a serious plan.
This article was last reviewed on 31 May 2026. CQC's framework and expectations change; verify the current position at cqc.org.uk. This article reflects the founder's experience as a CQC inspector.
Related reading: What a registered manager actually does · What makes a good registered manager, from the inspector's chair · Registered manager notifications: what you must tell CQC and when