St Marks Court

St Mark’s Court Care Home is situated in the centre of Gateshead. The Home serves a community that was in the past dominated by shipbuilding, and many of the staff and residents have lived in the area all their lives.

Visitors to St Mark’s Court always comment on how homely it is. That’s partly because of the warm greeting every visitor receives, but it’s much more to do with the fact that every bedroom is different. The residents are encouraged to give their room an individual feel and character of its own.

No one could say that our residents aren’t kept busy and active. We have an excellent Activities Co-ordinator who supports staff and we also have strong links with the local community. For example, the Salvation Army do a lunch club every week, which many of our residents attend. We also have links with ‘Hen Power’, an organisation that creatively ‘hengages’ older people in arts activities and hen-keeping to promote health and wellbeing. We have five hens from them and the residents put them on their knee, place their hand on them to settle them, and then just sit with them. It’s very relaxing for them.

Residents get involved in a variety of activities around the Home, from laying tables to the gardening club – they’re building a summer house and they want to get into more DIY.

We have a dance teacher once a week, an artist, and students from the local college who do sessions on memory with residents, and also help them to create a story, which they can write down and retell to the others.