Northbourne care home, Low Fell



























Welcome to Northbourne
A friendly and safe welcome
Find out how our new residents are being prioritised for vaccinations, alongside all the measures in place to keep everyone safe.
Anchor's Northbourne care home in Low Fell is a trusted provider of care for elderly people, and we offer support for older people who have residential and dementia care needs.
Northbourne provides an excellent standard of care and was rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission in their most recent inspection published in January 2019.
Our care home’s well trained and helpful staff provide 24-hour care and support to help you maintain your chosen lifestyle.
At Northbourne, activities play an important role and we aim to enhance our residents’ quality of life by providing a varied range of social activities.
We pride ourselves on the quality of our catering, with our chef preparing meals daily from fresh, seasonal ingredients.
Set in a quiet village location and in its own private grounds, Northbourne care home is close to local services and amenities, such as shops and a park.
In times of uncertainty, Anchor is a care provider you can depend on. We are proudly not-for-profit with more than 50 years of experience.
Come and visit us at any time. We’re here to help and look forward to giving you a warm welcome.
The service at Northbourne is performing exceptionally well
In the latest Your Care Rating survey at Northbourne
Features of Northbourne
Communal facilities
Shared facilities complementing each private residence:
- Engaging activities programme
- Garden
- Communal lounge
- Hairdressing salon
- Communal iPad
Care and support
In addition to residential care, we also offer:
- Palliative care
- Huntington's disease
- Dementia care
- Convalescence care
- Parkinson's disease
Food and dining
We promote wellbeing through a positive dining experience:
- Communal dining area
- Nutrition and hydration stations
- Visitors are welcome to join residents for meals
Life at Northbourne
At Northbourne care home, we provide quality 24-hour residential care and specialist care for residents with dementia.
We support and develop our staff on an ongoing basis to enable them to provide the highest quality care for our residents.
At our home we have:
- A ‘pets are welcome’ policy by arrangement with the Manager
- A hairdressing salon
- An internet cafe
- A lift to upper floors
- A personal laundry facility and laundry service
- A pay telephone and the facility for a private telephone line in each room
- Regular religious services and meetings should you wish to take part
- Newspapers which can be ordered and delivered daily to your room
- Wheelchair access and car parking
Nearby facilities:
- Newcastle town centre and Metrocentre are 4 miles away and can be reached using excellent bus services
- The nearest hospital is Queen Elizabeth
- Newcastle railway station is 4 miles away
- A theatre, swimming pool, golf course and supermarket are under 4 miles away

Northbourne is a unique, purpose-built residence which was designed to provide residential care. Set in a quiet location and in its own grounds, Northbourne has single en-suite rooms, some with lovely views of the gardens, countryside, etc.
Our home is fully furnished and decorated to a high standard with a call system which ensures that help is at hand 24 hours a day.
We also have:
- Some rooms with views of the gardens
- A television point and connections for satellite and digital TV
- Tea-making facilities available to make drinks for you and your visitors
Other accommodation facilities include:
- Cosy lounges with TVs and quiet areas for reading and relaxing
- A guest suite available for family and friends to stay overnight
- Bathrooms specially equipped so you can relax in comfort
- Safe, enclosed gardens
We encourage you to bring small personal items to enhance your room.

We know how important mealtimes are to our residents, so we always try to make this a sociable and enjoyable experience, whilst recognising individual choice.
Northbourne's Food Promise ensures all our menus offer freshly cooked, appetising and nutritionally balanced meals including:
- Cooked breakfast everyday
- Wholesome homemade soup everyday
- Freshly baked biscuits and cakes everyday
- Traditional Sunday Roast
- Fish and Chip Friday
Our Chefs understand the nutritional needs of older people and ensure that our meals are prepared using fresh, seasonal ingredients.
We serve tasty, wholesome dishes and involve residents in selecting our menus at a local level. We offer daily choice of meals and cater for special dietary needs and preferences, helping keep our residents healthy and well nourished.

Our care home organises and arranges a variety of opportunities for our residents to enjoy daily activities in our home and in the local community.
We work in partnership with the National Association for Providers of Activities for Older People (NAPA) and encourage activities that enhance our residents’ lifestyle, health and wellbeing.
Residents preferred activities, interests and ability are discussed when they move in and an agreed plan ensures that these requests are fulfilled (wherever possible). Our residents’ suggestions for activities also help shape the planning process.
We organise supervised day trips to leisure facilities and places of interest as well as social events in the home, including themed restaurant evenings, arts and crafts, quizzes and regular entertainers.

Activities calendar
Day | Morning | Lunch | Afternoon | Evening |
---|---|---|---|---|
Coffee morning | No activity | Baking | No activity | |
Hairdresser | No activity | Film club | No activity | |
Armchair exercises (fortnightly) | Church service (monthly) | Games afternoon | No activity | |
Gardening club | No activity | Knit & natter | Gentlemen's club | |
Pet therapy (monthly) | Fish & chip lunch | No activity | Trip to the pub | |
No activity | No activity | Arts & crafts | No activity | |
No activity | No activity | Afternoon tea (monthly) | No activity |
Health
At Northbourne, our caring and attentive staff work with our residents and their loved ones to create a detailed care plan which ensures our residents individual health and care needs are met.
We know how important it is to care for our residents with the dignity and respect they deserve and this is at the heart of what we do at Northbourne care home.
Our commitment to advanced dementia training for our staff has helped the Department of Health pass its goal of 3,000 Dignity Champions nationwide.
Our health and social care partners include:
- A GP who is available on request
- A hairdresser visits every week
- A chiropodist visits on request
- A dentist and optician who visit the home
- The district nurse and physiotherapist who visit by arrangement
- Holistic therapist visits can be arranged
Pricing information
We endeavour to be completely transparent about all our charges and fees. For further information please contact us.
How much does it cost?
Care homes
Call us to discuss your specific care needs today
What is included in care home fees?
For many people, moving to a care home is a big decision and it can be difficult to know where to start. Care home fees are based on a range of factors, including specific care needs, which can change over time.
Living in an Anchor care home you can be confident that a single fee covers the cost of your personally tailored 24 hour care and support, utility bills and meals, as well as a fantastic range of daily activities. In an Anchor care home our weekly charge includes:
- cost of personal care
- accommodation
- utilities e.g. heating and light
- all resident catering, meals, snacks and drinks
- laundry undertaken on the premises
- television licence, including for person use
- housekeeping services.
The following extra items and services are not covered by the weekly fees, however we can arrange for them to be provided (at an additional cost):
- professional hairdressing
- personal copies of newspapers or magazines
- personal purchases such as stationery, confectionery, toiletries etc.
- clothing, shoes and slippers
- dry cleaning
- private telephone line rental and calls and cable connections.
In the absence of free provision by the NHS, we can also arrange for the following healthcare services to be provided, these will be charged in addition to the weekly fees:
- chiropody
- optometry
- dentistry
- physiotherapy
- other privately arranged healthcare
- care staff accompaniment to regular medical appointments.
No upfront deposit is required at any of Anchor’s care homes to secure a room.
At Anchor we pride ourselves on offering a truly tailored approach to care and therefore need to fully understand your needs to provide you with an accurate fee estimate. Please call us to discuss your specific care needs today. Alternatively we welcome you to visit us to discuss your situation face-to-face.
Want more information on care home fees?
Learning about the different funding options available to you can also help you feel confident in your decisions. Anchor know that securing care home funding can sometimes appear a rather daunting task and so to help we have put together a free guide covering requesting assistance, top up fees and third-party payments.
Care home feesAt Northbourne we have a caring team of well qualified professionals, passionate about what they do and dedicated to ensuring our residents always feel confident that they can rely on a friendly face and helping hand 24-hours a day.
We encourage visits to Northbourne so you can meet our team and get a feel of what it would be like to live here. You will be able to look around, meet other residents, find out what goes on and ask any questions you may have. It is important to us that you make the right decision and are happy with your choice of new home.

Alison Fryer
Care Home Manager
Our customers and colleagues take great pride in our home, the care, support and stimulation offered to make happy living for the years ahead. Please come and visit us and see for yourself.

Emma Eagle
Deputy Manager
Here at Northbourne we take a great deal of pride in the fantastic care we offer.

Joanne Gregory
Administrator
I'm here to help customers and their families feel confident in their choice and ensure they feel supported and in control. Pop in and see our home for yourself.
A safe welcome

Staying safe
We continue to welcome new residents to our home safely. We regularly test residents and colleagues, have been prioritised for Covid-19 vaccinations and are well equipped with high-quality personal protective equipment (PPE).

Staying clean
We ensure a sterile environment with regular deep-cleaning and are committed to protecting everyone living and working in our home through robust infection-control measures.

Staying in touch
We maintain regular contact with families and are doing everything we can to enable residents to see relatives and loved ones wherever it is safe to do so. We also offer virtual show rounds to those considering our home.
Useful information
To start your enquiry simply click 'Make Enquiry' and call us or complete an enquiry form.
We’ll provide you with full details of the home, along with any other information you’d like such as sample menus and activity schedules.
While we can’t currently invite you to visit in person, a member of our friendly team can offer you a virtual show round, a video call or a FaceTime appointment, where you can speak to them one-to-one and take a look around the home and any rooms that are available.
We’re keen to show you what daily life is like here and for you to meet the staff providing care. You can also see for yourself the measures we’ve put in place to keep residents safe.
If you wish to take your enquiry further, an assessment will take place to make sure we can meet your loved one’s care needs. This will be arranged in a safe way by the senior care management team at the home and may be conducted virtually or at a safe social distance with the staff member wearing the required PPE.
Ensuring residents’ safety and wellbeing is our absolute priority.
We’ll put together a comprehensive two-week settling-in programme with you and your loved one, designed entirely around their needs. This provides a dedicated package of one-to-one activities and support that minimises the potential for cross-infection. We’ll use this time to get to know each other and, most importantly, ensure there are plenty of opportunities to maintain regular contact with family and friends using the latest video call technology.
Our chef will arrange delicious meals to suit your loved one’s preferences and dietary requirements and discuss our menus going forward. And, from day one of moving in, our housekeeping teams make sure bedrooms and laundry services are tailored to their needs.
The home manager will discuss every area of moving-in with you in detail to make sure you and your loved one know exactly what to expect and feel confident and welcomed when they come to live with us.
Our homes were among the first in the country to take part in the government’s care home testing programme in July 2020 – and we’ve been regularly testing colleagues and residents since.
- All care home colleagues are routinely tested twice every week.
- All residents are tested on admission to the home and then routinely.
With residents’ safety and wellbeing our absolute priority, we want to assure you that we’re doing everything possible to prevent coronavirus entering our homes.
We are pleased that care home residents and workers have been prioritised to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The roll-out to Anchor care homes is underway with vaccination teams having visited every home and all residents having been offered a first vaccine. Vaccination teams are now in the process of revisiting homes to administer the second vaccine.
All new residents will also be prioritised for a vaccination on move-in.
Each of our homes is different so please speak directly to the manager of the care home you’re interested in.
Like any other infectious disease, coronavirus can be prevented from spreading with the right training, equipment and infection-control measures.
We are well equipped and have good stocks of high-quality personal protective equipment (PPE) which complies with government requirements.
Our in-house team are highly trained and experienced in ensuring a clean and safe environment and committed to protecting everyone living and working in our home through the consistent use of infection control measures. These measures include regular hand washing, social distancing, putting on clean uniforms upon arrival and the proper use of appropriate PPE.
As members of the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc), we take cleaning and cleanliness extremely seriously. We use the highest-quality products and are following an enhanced programme of cleaning.
We welcome the latest government announcement on visiting in care homes by a named person, supported by testing, from 8 March. While we’ve always facilitated visits wherever possible and in accordance with Public Health England guidance, we’re delighted that people living in our homes will soon be able to have more regular, sustained and meaningful contact with a loved one. We look forward to providing more information once we have received the updated government care home guidance on visiting.
Our teams have worked hard to facilitate visits in our gardens and external areas at some of our homes and, where full safety criteria has been met and local health protection advice permits, we now have an inside visiting space with a screen.
Of course, this is all subject to changes in government guidance and local lockdown restrictions.
We will always permit visits in exceptional circumstances.
Each of our homes is different and you’ll have the opportunity to speak directly to the manager of the care home you’re interested in.
In these challenging times we’ve invested significantly in technology – such as Skype and FaceTime – so you can stay in regular touch.
During this difficult time, we’re keeping life as normal as possible so residents feel safe, secure, and happy. Which means your loved one can expect great fresh food, a wealth of activities and friendly company.
Residents continue to enjoy delicious, freshly-made meals every day, with a choice of menu daily, prepared by our expert catering teams.
Our creative activity programmes, developed by our in-house team of wellness coordinators, aims to keep residents as active and healthy as possible, should they wish to take part, ranging from person-centred activities to home-wide events.
Getting here
Northbourne
Durham Road, Low Fell, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, NE9 5AR

What's happening at Northbourne
Supply of retirement communities needs to be boosted by a third by 2040, finds new report
The International Longevity Centre’s report, What we want: Future-proofing retirement housing in England, highlights the importance of housing designed specifically with emerging care needs in mind...
Cross-party group calls for urgent action to make housing ‘dementia-ready’
A cross-party group of MPs and Peers has called for urgent action to ensure that housing is ‘dementia-ready’ from the outset, in a new report: "Housing for people with dementia – are we ready?"
New ‘10 Today’ report finds ‘increased mental wellbeing’ among older people
The Demos report outlines the positive effects that Anchor Hanover’s 10 today exercise programme has had on the UK public.
Re-engage and Anchor Hanover join forces to tackle ‘lockdown loneliness’ in older people
Anchor Hanover and national older people’s charity Re-engage have come together to tackle the rise in loneliness intensified by the pandemic.
Snowy Thursdays call for cosy cinema trips #joyoffilm #cinema #Snowing #MovieMagic https://t.co/HhgAoxKStH
twitterEnsuring it is easy for people living with us to give Anchor Hanover feedback
In response to the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code we have published a thorough self-assessment of our complaints policy and procedures for people living with us.
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