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The winter rains, hurricanes and floods will hopefully have subsided by the time this issue reaches you. Spring
was edging out the winter blues as I write this editorial. This will be an exciting year as it is the lead up to the
general election and no doubt the politicians will pick up the NHS football to garner votes.

The Health and Social Care legislation has slowly become embedded, warts and all. Many CCGs have started some
semblance of commissioning, the main focus of the restructuring, but are hampered by a very wieldy and bureaucratic
tendering system. It is difficult to understand the need for such a process for services that have no more than one supplier
or are innovations, which means divulging intellectual property to third parties. Furthermore, the bigger private sector
organisations have an army of Tendering Experts, whose sole tasks are to get through the bidding process, which they
do very successfully. Little surprise then that the assurances given to the SMEs, including CIC and Social Enterprises that
this would be a level playing field ring a resounding hollow. They just do not have the resources of the larger companies.
Whatever the hue of the next government the tendering process needs to be overhauled.

With obesity levels, in adults and children, rising and rising (we are following the USA trend of course), the awareness
of the role of nutrition to our health is vital. Katey Halliday busts some of the myths (p.30). UK has one of the highest
incidence of unwanted pregnancies in Europe. I find this hard to square given the myriad of methods of contraception
available as neatly detailed by Anusha Dias (p.8).

Mackenzie brings us right up to date by addressing problems such as fractures, adrenal suppression, hyperglycaemia.
(p.19).

Enjoy this issue. Please let me have your suggestions and comments. By the time of the next issue the Football World
Cup tournament will have concluded. As a football fan I shall be rooting for England, in the hope rather than the
expectation that my gut feeling of their level of performance is wrong.