Kirkley Lodge care home, Coulby Newham
At a Glance
The information you need to decide whether this home warrants a closer look.
Residential homes
Staff warmth score
of reviewers answered yes
Good to know
- Registered beds47
- SpecialismsCaring for adults over 65 yrs, Dementia
- Last inspected2023-02-10
- Activities programmeThe kitchen produces proper home cooking — families talk about fresh cakes, quiche, and treats alongside regular meals. Bedrooms get redecorated regularly to keep them fresh and comfortable, something relatives notice when they visit over months and years.
- Visit Website
The Evidence
What the review data, the inspection reports, and the dementia-care evidence base tell us about this home.
What families say
The home keeps residents engaged through the day with crafts, games, and music sessions that draw people together in the dining room. Families mention seasonal decorations and special buffets that mark the calendar, creating reasons to gather and chat. Staff work to encourage everyone to join in at mealtimes, understanding that company and conversation matter as much as the food itself.
Based on 11 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10
The eight family priority themes
- Staff warmth72
- Compassion & dignity72
- Cleanliness70
- Activities & engagement60
- Food quality60
- Healthcare65
- Management & leadership72
- Resident happiness68
What inspectors found
Inspected 2023-02-10 · Report published 2023-02-10 · Inspected 4 times in the last three years
Is this home safe?
{"found":"Kirkley Lodge received a Good rating for safety at its January 2023 inspection. The published report does not include specific details about staffing ratios, medicines management, falls prevention, or infection control procedures. A monitoring review in July 2023 found no new safety concerns. The home is registered for 47 beds, specialising in older adults and dementia care. No concerns or conditions were recorded against the registration.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good safety rating means inspectors did not identify failings in the areas that matter most: medicines, staffing, and how the home responds when things go wrong. However, the published findings give no specific detail on night staffing, which is where the Good Practice evidence base consistently identifies risk. Research across 61 studies found that safety most commonly slips on night shifts and when agency staff cover unfamiliar residents. With 47 beds and a dementia specialism, you need to know the overnight staffing number before you can feel genuinely confident. Cleanliness also matters to 24.3% of families in our review data, and the inspection text gives no detail on this either, so it is worth checking on your visit.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base (IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University, 2026) identifies night staffing ratios and agency staff reliance as the two most consistent predictors of safety risk in dementia care homes. Neither is addressed in the published findings for this home.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for last week, not a template. Count how many permanent carers and senior staff were on duty overnight on a typical night, and ask what proportion of those shifts were covered by agency staff."}
Is the care effective?
{"found":"The home received a Good rating for effectiveness at its January 2023 inspection. The published text does not describe the content of care plans, GP access arrangements, medicines administration, or dementia-specific training in any detail. The home has a dementia specialism registered with the regulator. No concerns were identified in this domain.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Effectiveness in a dementia care home comes down to whether staff know your parent as an individual and whether the care plan is genuinely used day to day, or just sits in a folder. Our review data shows that healthcare responsiveness matters to 20.2% of families and food quality to 20.9%, yet neither is described specifically in these findings. The Good Practice evidence base is clear that care plans should be living documents, reviewed regularly with family input, not completed at admission and left unchanged. Ask specifically how often your parent's care plan would be reviewed and whether you would be invited to contribute.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review found that care plans function as meaningful tools only when staff are trained to use them dynamically and when families are treated as partners in review, not just recipients of information.","watch_out":"Ask the manager how often care plans are formally reviewed, who leads that review, and whether families are routinely invited to attend or contribute. Then ask to see the format of a care plan (with personal details removed) so you can judge whether it would capture what matters most to your parent."}
Is this home caring?
{"found":"Kirkley Lodge received a Good rating for caring at its January 2023 inspection. The published text does not include specific observations of staff interactions, quotes from residents or relatives, or examples of how dignity and privacy are maintained. No concerns were identified in this domain. The Good rating indicates inspectors were satisfied with the standard of care observed.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of family satisfaction in our review data, mentioned in 57.3% of positive reviews, and compassion and dignity follow closely at 55.2%. These are also the things hardest to judge from a report alone. A Good rating tells you inspectors did not see poor care, but it does not tell you whether staff know your mum's preferred name, whether they sit with her when she is anxious, or whether mealtimes feel relaxed. The Good Practice evidence base is clear that non-verbal communication matters as much as verbal interaction for people with dementia, and that genuine person-led care requires staff to know the individual, not just the diagnosis. This is the domain where a visit matters most.","evidence_base":"Research consistently shows that for people with dementia, the quality of staff interaction, particularly unhurried, attuned, and responsive communication, predicts wellbeing outcomes more reliably than any structural feature of the building or service.","watch_out":"On your visit, watch how staff address residents in communal areas. Do they use your parent's preferred name? Do they crouch to eye level when speaking to someone seated? Do they move at the resident's pace, or their own? These small behaviours are the most reliable signal of genuine caring culture."}
Is the home responsive?
{"found":"Kirkley Lodge received a Good rating for responsiveness at its January 2023 inspection. The published text does not describe the activities programme, how the home supports individual preferences, or how it approaches end-of-life care. No concerns were identified. The home's dementia specialism suggests it should have provision for residents across a range of abilities, but no specific detail is available from the published findings.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Responsiveness is about whether your parent will have a real life here, not just be cared for. Activities engagement matters to 21.4% of families in our review data, and resident happiness to 27.1%. The Good Practice evidence base highlights that group activities alone are not sufficient for people with advanced dementia, and that individual, meaningful engagement, including everyday tasks like folding, sorting, or tending plants, produces significantly better wellbeing outcomes. The inspection gives no detail on whether Kirkley Lodge offers one-to-one engagement for residents who cannot join groups. This is one of the most important questions to ask on your visit.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review (61 studies, 2026) found that individualised, Montessori-style activities and everyday household task engagement produce measurably better wellbeing outcomes for people with dementia than group activity programmes alone.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator to describe what a typical Tuesday looks like for a resident with moderate to advanced dementia who cannot easily join group sessions. Ask how many hours of one-to-one engagement that resident would receive in a week, and from whom."}
Is the home well-led?
{"found":"Kirkley Lodge received a Good rating for well-led at its January 2023 inspection. Mrs Anna Louise Bracey is the registered manager and Mr Daniel Ryan is the nominated individual for Anchor Hanover Group. The published text does not describe management visibility, staff culture, governance processes, or how the home handles complaints. No concerns were identified in this domain. The July 2023 monitoring review found no evidence requiring reassessment.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management stability is one of the strongest predictors of sustained quality in care homes, according to the Good Practice evidence base. The fact that a named registered manager is in post and the home has maintained a Good rating across at least four inspections is a positive signal. Communication with families matters to 11.5% of reviewers in our data, and how well-led a home is directly affects whether families are kept informed and whether their concerns are taken seriously. Anchor Hanover Group is a large not-for-profit provider, which may bring resources and oversight, but it also means the local manager's tenure and presence on the floor matters more, not less. Find out how long Mrs Bracey has been in post and whether staff and residents know her by name.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review found that leadership stability is one of the most consistent predictors of quality trajectory in care homes, and that homes where staff feel empowered to raise concerns without fear perform significantly better on resident outcomes.","watch_out":"Ask Mrs Bracey directly how long she has been the registered manager at Kirkley Lodge, and ask a care worker (separately, if possible) whether they feel comfortable raising concerns with management. The answers to those two questions will tell you more about the culture than any policy document."}
Source: CQC inspection report →
What the evidence base says
Against the DCC Good Practice in Dementia Care standards, this home’s evidence aligns most strongly on The home cares for people over 65, with particular experience supporting those living with dementia.. Gaps or open questions remain on Staff show real understanding of how dementia affects daily life, maintaining familiar routines and finding ways to connect with each person. The continuity of carers means residents see familiar faces who know their history and habits. — 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.
DCC Family Score
Kirkley Lodge was rated Good across all five inspection domains, which places it in the positive-but-limited-evidence band. The published inspection text does not include specific observations, quotes, or detailed examples, so scores reflect a confirmed Good rating without the granular detail that would push them higher.
Homes in North East typically score 68–82.The three-lens summary
What families tell us
The home keeps residents engaged through the day with crafts, games, and music sessions that draw people together in the dining room. Families mention seasonal decorations and special buffets that mark the calendar, creating reasons to gather and chat. Staff work to encourage everyone to join in at mealtimes, understanding that company and conversation matter as much as the food itself.
What inspectors have recorded
What stands out is how well the care team knows each resident. Staff remember personal details and preferences long-term, adjusting their approach as needs change. When families have faced difficult moments, including hospital stays and end-of-life care, the team has provided consistent support.
How it sits against good practice
While one family did experience frustrating communication issues with the admissions team, the direct care consistently reflects genuine knowledge of and commitment to residents.
Worth a visit
Kirkley Lodge, on Dalby Way in Middlesbrough, was rated Good at its last inspection in January 2023, with Good ratings in every domain: Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive, and Well-led. A follow-up monitoring review in July 2023 found no evidence to change that rating. The home is run by Anchor Hanover Group, a large not-for-profit provider, and has a named registered manager in post. It is registered to care for adults over 65, including people with dementia, and has 47 beds. The main limitation of this report is that the published inspection text is brief and does not include specific observations, staff or resident quotes, or detailed examples of day-to-day care. A Good rating is meaningful and should give you reasonable confidence, but it cannot tell you what the atmosphere feels like on a Tuesday afternoon or how staff respond when your dad is having a difficult day. Before making a decision, arrange a visit during a weekday, arrive at or just after a mealtime so you can observe how food is served and how staff interact with residents, and ask the manager directly about night staffing ratios, agency use, and how the home supports residents with advanced dementia who cannot join group activities.
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In Their Own Words
How Kirkley Lodge care home, Coulby Newham describes itself — collected from its own website. DCC has not edited or independently verified the content in this tab.
Where staff remember the little things that make each person unique
Dedicated residential home Support in Middlesbrough
When someone you love needs dementia care, you want to know they'll be understood as an individual. Kirkley Lodge in Middlesbrough has built its reputation on staff who take time to learn what makes each resident tick — from favourite songs to how they take their tea. Families describe a place where their relatives have lived contentedly for years, with carers who notice when someone needs extra encouragement or a familiar routine.
Who they care for
The home cares for people over 65, with particular experience supporting those living with dementia.
Staff show real understanding of how dementia affects daily life, maintaining familiar routines and finding ways to connect with each person. The continuity of carers means residents see familiar faces who know their history and habits.
Management & ethos
What stands out is how well the care team knows each resident. Staff remember personal details and preferences long-term, adjusting their approach as needs change. When families have faced difficult moments, including hospital stays and end-of-life care, the team has provided consistent support.
The home & environment
The kitchen produces proper home cooking — families talk about fresh cakes, quiche, and treats alongside regular meals. Bedrooms get redecorated regularly to keep them fresh and comfortable, something relatives notice when they visit over months and years.
“While one family did experience frustrating communication issues with the admissions team, the direct care consistently reflects genuine knowledge of and commitment to residents.”
DCC does not edit or curate content in this tab. For independently curated information, see The Evidence and DCC Verdict.
