About Mr Chandy

Joseph joined his father the Senior partner in June 1996 in Horden. In 2014 his father retired and Joseph took over as Managing Partner. In his tenure the Practice has expanded from 3000 patients and one site to 18,000 patients over 6 sites over a period of 20 years. Until March 2024 Joseph also had a parallel career working as an NHS Director. This began with his experience of GP fundholding. In 2001 he supported his father in setting up the first GP out of hours co-operative in Easington and acted as Secretary. This involved initially 16 practices 70,000 patients and later added another 3 practice taking the total to 100,000 patients. In 2001 Dr Chandy was instrumental in setting up a GP consortium that led a buy out of Peterlee Health Centre. Joseph remains Managing Director to this day. In 2003 Joseph was elected by the whole GP body of Easington to become Practice Based Commissioning Chair. This post he was re-elected to continuously until 2011. Joseph at this point transitioned to becoming the appointed Chair for County Durham PCT and provided leadership to the 6 locality commissioning GP chairs. In 2012 Joseph became Director of Practice Based Commissioning. As part of this role he worked with the PCT and the GPs to develop GP led Commissioning. For his work on GP led commissioning he was invited to Downing Street along with 25 other GP leaders in the country who were at the vanguard. This shadow form gave way to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) Joseph was first appointed as Director of Performance for Durham Dales Easington CCG. Two years later he was appointed as Director of Primary Care. In 2018 he was also asked to become Director of Primary Care for North Durham CCG. In 2019 both CCGs merged to become Co Durham CCG. In the same year Joseph spearheaded a pilot called Primary Care Home and every practice within Co Durham participated. 2 years later this became a national policy with the introduction of Primary Care Networks. With the abolishment of CCGs in June 2022, Joseph was appointed as Director of Primary Care for North East and North Cumbria. In July 2023 the responsibility of commissioning Pharmacy, Dentistry and Optometry was added to his role. In March 2024 Joseph retired from this role to focus on the Practice.

During 2016 -2018 Joseph lead on the development and construction of two new GP surgeries totalling £3.8million for the villages of Horden and Wheatley Hill respectively.

Joseph’s inspiration is his father, Dr Joe Chandy who was a GP in Horden, County Durham for 45 years, and 50 years in the NHS until retiring recently. Joseph continues his role in the same Practice as Managing Partner (part-time) of East Durham Medical Group. He is married to Claire with 3 boys Alex, Joshua who works in the same Practice, as an IT Lead and Covid Clinic Manager, Sam and grandchildren Isla and Luca. In the little spare time that he has, Joseph is a dedicated Newcastle United supporter.