Conversely it may lead to a superior service for fundholders' patients compared with non-fundholders' if the hospitals try to attract back the more mobile

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Conversely, it may lead to a superior service for fundholders' patients compared with non-fundholders' if the hospitals try to attract back the more mobile fundholder business.We cannot deduce from the fall in admissions to NHS hospitals after a GP practice becomes a fundholder that patient treatment is worse.However, the scheme clearly has had unintended equity consequences. These are not in accord with the popular view - that fundholder patients get more hospital treatment - but that fundholding GPs have been able to increase their budgets for hospital care by bringing referrals forward.The cash constraints on the NHS means that this leaves less money for the hospital care of patients not in fundholder practices. Whether it also means there was better care available for patients in fundholder practices depends on how exactly fundholders used their additional funds.. IT HAS happened at long last. And many cognoscenti were resigned to the acquiescence that it would never ever happen. The realisation of a trial in a third country, on a chunk of territory temporarily ceded to the jurisdiction of the country in which a crime took place, is a historic legal event of international significance. The name Zeist, where the trial will be held, will be engraved in the annals of 20th-century European history. Leave aside the Byzantine intricacies of the Lockerbie saga; they are so complex that some of those involved would qualify for the status of Professor of Lockerbie Studies.

Like the Falklands war, it will doubtless become a special subject for those doing part two of their history degree.Are there general conclusions to be reached? At first glance, perhaps not Lockerbie is hopefully unique. The scale of the murder, the number of countries involved, the international interface between the politics of the Arab world and those of the West, and much else. At another level, Lockerbie makes the case for an international tribunal on terrorism, so ably deployed by Professor Paul Wilkinson of St Andrews and others.Other considerations apart, such an approach might mean that crimes were dealt with expeditiously rather than withholding alleged evidence for the requirements of a court and waiting for a decade, after which memories could fade and key witnesses may have died.I have every confidence in the Scottish legal system, as befits the son- in-law of a judge of the High Court. But it is redoubled by the knowledge that the judges chosen will be all too aware that they have a place in legal and political history, far in excess of reputation involved in any other case in which they may have been involved.

The last thing for which those chosen would want to be remembered is involvement in what was seen by history as a botched verdict.For some years, the campaigners felt that it would be right to have five judges, at least two of whom should be from the Arab world. However, the argument that was thrown in our face time and again was that it would be inappropriate and a bad reflection on the Scottish legal system if the trial were not to take place on Scottish soil.We recognised that there was never a hope that the Libyans would agree to any such venue And indeed they can be forgiven for that. I have a personal apology from Sir Christopher Bland, chairman of the BBC, for a statement on a BBC radio programme referring to "the bombers". When they surveyed the British press and heard broadcasts, it is not surprising that the Libyan government judged that their citizens would not get a fair trial in a country with whom they had no extradition treaty.Indeed, if the boot had been on the other foot and it was proposed that two Scots whom we believed to be innocent were to be sent to Libya, I doubt if any British government would have given the go-ahead and allowed our nationals to be treated in such a way.Another unique feature was the sheer sustained determination of a truly remarkable group of relatives of the victims, strengthened by the fact that they were not asking for money. There was Pamela Dix, the secretary, who lost her brother and had all the efficiency of the able civil servant that she is.