Major plans for East Durham GP surgery

Extensive work is being carried out at the Shinwell Medical Centre, in Fourth Street, Horden thanks to a £1.4 million loan from Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking.

It includes an extension so that the Horden Group Practice, previously based in Sunderland Road, can move in.

The new Shinwell Medical Group building will open in October, where both practices will operate independently.

The number of patients will increase by 7,000, bringing the combined patient list to 14,000.

There will also be a training centre for junior doctors looking for a career in general practice.

The bank loan is the latest deal in a long-standing relationship with the Chandy family, who own and manage the Shinwell Medical Group.

Lloyds Bank originally funded the family’s development of the Jack Dormand nursing home in the late 1980s, as well as development of the original Shinwell Medical Centre.

In the late 1990s, it helped Dr Joseph Chandy and a consortium of GPs purchase and modernise the Peterlee Health Centre.

More recently, the bank has supported, Joseph Chandy, a partner at the Shinwell Medical Centre, with the construction of a £2.4 million GP practice in Wheatley Hill, which was completed in December last year.

Malcolm Swan, healthcare relationship manager at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said: “The Chandy family are committed to ensuring that communities across the county have access to high-quality healthcare services, and we’re pleased to have been able to support the family over two generations as they’ve worked to achieve this goal.”