Dementia Care Home

Coombe Dingle Nursing Home

14 Queens Park Road, Caterham, Surrey, CR3 5RB

Nursing homes

At a Glance

The information you need to decide whether this home warrants a closer look.

DCC Family Score
72/ 100
Weighted from family reviews
Dementia SpecialismConfirmed

Nursing homes

Families Rate The Staff72 / 100

Staff warmth score

“Well Looked After”65%

of reviewers answered yes

Good to know

  • Registered beds35
  • SpecialismsCaring for adults over 65 yrs, Dementia
  • Last inspected2020-02-18

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The Evidence

What the review data, the inspection reports, and the dementia-care evidence base tell us about this home.

Section 01

What families say

What strikes families most is how residents are cared for with real dignity here. Whether someone's recovering from surgery or needs end-of-life support, the atmosphere stays warm and wholesome. People mention how their relatives seemed genuinely comfortable and well-looked-after.

The eight family priority themes

  • Staff warmth72
  • Compassion & dignity72
  • Cleanliness65
  • Activities & engagement55
  • Food quality55
  • Healthcare65
  • Management & leadership72
  • Resident happiness65
Section 02

What inspectors found

Inspected 2020-02-18

  • Is this home safe?

    Good
    The home was rated Good for safety at its January 2020 inspection. The published report does not include specific detail about how safety is managed, including staffing ratios, falls prevention, medicines management, or infection control practices. A July 2023 monitoring review found no evidence requiring a reassessment of the Good rating. The home is a nursing home, which means a registered nurse should be on duty at all times, though the report does not confirm this in detail. The home's improvement from Requires Improvement suggests that previously identified safety concerns were addressed.
    Verified by inspector
  • Is the care effective?

    Good
    The home was rated Good for effectiveness at its January 2020 inspection. The published report does not include specific observations about care plan quality, GP access, dementia training, or food provision. The home is registered to provide nursing care, which implies access to clinical oversight, but no detail is given about how healthcare needs are monitored or escalated. The July 2023 review found no evidence to change the rating.
    Verified by inspector
  • Is this home caring?

    Good
    The home was rated Good for caring at its January 2020 inspection. The published report does not include direct inspector observations about staff interactions with residents, use of preferred names, responses to distress, or whether residents appeared settled and content. The Good rating in this domain, achieved after a previous Requires Improvement rating, suggests that inspectors were satisfied with what they saw, but the specific evidence is not detailed in the published summary.
    Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded
  • Is the home responsive?

    Good
    The home was rated Good for responsiveness at its January 2020 inspection. The published report does not describe the activities programme, individual engagement for residents who cannot join group activities, or how the home responds to individual preferences and complaints. The home is registered as a dementia specialist, which implies a commitment to tailored care, but no specific examples are given in the published summary.
    Verified by inspector
  • Is the home well-led?

    Good
    The home was rated Good for leadership at its January 2020 inspection, having previously been rated Requires Improvement. Two registered managers are listed, Jenesh George and Gayle Sanders, alongside a nominated individual. The published report does not describe the managers' visibility, staff culture, how complaints are handled, or how the home learns from incidents. The improvement in rating across all domains suggests that leadership drove meaningful change, but the detail of how is not available in the published summary.
    Verified by inspector
  • Source: CQC inspection report →

    Section 03

    What the evidence base says

    The home cares for people over 65 and has dementia listed as a specialism. They've looked after residents recovering from operations as well as those needing longer-term nursing support. While dementia care is offered here, families haven't shared specific details about how this works in practice. If this is important for your situation, it's worth asking about their approach when you get in touch. All areas worth probing directly during a visit.

The DCC Verdict

Our editorial view, built from the three lenses: what families tell us, what inspectors record, and how the home sits against good dementia-care practice.

72/ 100

DCC Family Score

Coombe Dingle Nursing Home scored 72 out of 100, reflecting a solid Good rating across all five inspection domains and a meaningful improvement from its previous Requires Improvement rating. The score is held back by the limited specific detail available in the published inspection findings, which means several areas important to families cannot be independently verified.

Homes in South East typically score 68–82.

The three-lens summary

Lens 01

What families tell us

What strikes families most is how residents are cared for with real dignity here. Whether someone's recovering from surgery or needs end-of-life support, the atmosphere stays warm and wholesome. People mention how their relatives seemed genuinely comfortable and well-looked-after.

Lens 02

What inspectors have recorded

Staff here respond quickly when residents need something, and they extend that same kindness to worried families too. People describe getting emotional support during difficult times, which shows the team understands that caring extends beyond just medical needs.

Lens 03

How it sits against good practice

Sometimes the smallest gestures of kindness make the biggest difference during life's hardest chapters.

DCC Recommendation

Worth a visit

Coombe Dingle Nursing Home, at 14 Queens Park Road in Caterham, was rated Good across all five inspection domains at its January 2020 inspection. Importantly, this was an improvement from a previous Requires Improvement rating, which tells you the home recognised its shortcomings and acted on them. The home is registered to provide nursing care and specialist dementia care for up to 35 people over 65, and a monitoring review in July 2023 found no evidence to suggest the rating should change. The main limitation here is straightforward: the published inspection report contains very little specific detail about day-to-day life inside the home. There are no recorded observations about staff warmth, food quality, activity provision, cleanliness, or how dementia care is delivered in practice. A Good rating is genuinely reassuring, but it is not a substitute for a thorough visit. When you go, ask to see last week's actual staffing rota (not a template) so you can count permanent versus agency staff on day and night shifts. Observe whether staff use your parent's preferred name without being prompted, and ask to see the weekly activity schedule and who runs it.

The three questions to ask when you visit

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In Their Own Words

How Coombe Dingle Nursing Home describes itself — collected from its own website. DCC has not edited or independently verified the content in this tab.

What Coombe Dingle Nursing Home says about itself

Where dignity and kindness matter most when families need it

Coombe Dingle Nursing Home – Your Trusted nursing home

When you're facing difficult decisions about nursing care, knowing your loved one will be treated with genuine compassion makes all the difference. Coombe Dingle Nursing Home in Caterham offers exactly that kind of thoughtful support. Families who've been through some of life's toughest moments here speak about the respect and comfort their relatives received, particularly during end-of-life care and recovery periods.

Care & specialisms

Who they care for

    The home cares for people over 65 and has dementia listed as a specialism. They've looked after residents recovering from operations as well as those needing longer-term nursing support.

    How they describe their dementia care

    While dementia care is offered here, families haven't shared specific details about how this works in practice. If this is important for your situation, it's worth asking about their approach when you get in touch.

    “Sometimes the smallest gestures of kindness make the biggest difference during life's hardest chapters.”

    DCC does not edit or curate content in this tab. For independently curated information, see The Evidence and DCC Verdict.

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