News of Stamford Hospital seems to feature weekly in the Mercury and in particular plans for its speedy redevelopment. The Partners have recently been hearing first hand of the outline plans and are excited by the proposals. Some interesting facts and statistics have evolved and one in particular sticks in my mind – that is that the hospital site covers 7½ acres and that only 38% of that is currently in use.  This is an annual costly waste for the Trust and the NHS.  Amongst the issues the Partners raised was that of access to the site, car parking, what new planned services were proposed, and whether it was going to be possible to increase the capacity of the services that are presently in place on the site. It is early days and there are many hurdles ahead but it is reassuring to hear that the future of the hospital is assured and we will watch the developments with great interest.  It remains to be seen what impact the new Conservative-Lib-Dem Coalition will have on the NHS. Even before their election those of us working in the service were aware of more urgent “funding reviews” and more urgent need to identify and make more “efficiency savings”. Demographic changes – especially the rising number of elderly patients – are predicted to push NHS costs progressively higher from 2010. For some general practices especially those on so called PMS contracts funding reviews could result in a significantly reduced income leading to reduction of some services and possibly staff redundancies. We are not anticipating such measures at The Sheepmarket Surgery, but we will be required to continue audits on our hospital referrals and on our prescribing. Prescribing audits may mean that some patients are asked to switch to more cost effective medicines. Patients in the past have generally readily agreed to such initiatives and we would hope to be able to count on your support with any similar initiatives in the future. It will be more important than ever to make every pound spent go as far as possible.