RUMOURS of plans to merge North Tees and Hartlepool hospitals into a new superhospital have been swirling about since 2004 when Tony Blair, whose Sedgefield constituents would have used the facility, was asked about them.

On January 20, 2007, the plans were formally released, and they were greeted by a mixed reaction. In Hartlepool, which didn't want to lose its town hospital, there were cries of betrayal; in Stockton South, the then Labour MP said she was delighted "but expressed doubt whether the new hospital would ever be built".

Dari Taylor appears to have been right. Wynyard won't be going ahead for some time yet – if ever.

And so after ten years, we are back where we started.

Only the hospitals that were nearing the end of their efficient lives a decade ago are now ten years older, and we dread to think how much taxpayers' money has evaporated over the course of those ten years – on top of the architects, financiers and consultants, the trust spent £5m on land at Wynyard.

This does say something about how we plan big projects in this country – if we can't even begin to build a hospital in a decade, what are the chances of something as truly controversial as a high speed railway ever reaching our region?

Over the last decade, thinking on the future of the NHS has changed. Ten years ago, there was a drive towards centralised superhospitals but only yesterday, NHS England launched a five year plan which spoke of large GP practices employing hospital doctors to provide services like diagnostics, chemotherapy and hospital outpatient appointments.

In general, people accept the need for regionalised specialisms but really they want to be treated as locally as possible – only yesterday there were placards outside North Tees saying "Save our Haematology Unit".

It is an unenviable task being a director in the cash-strapped NHS where circles always need to be squared, but all patients were asking yesterday was what happens now. Will it take another decade to find out?