under his care between 1971 and 1998, but it is uncertain how many of those were murder victims, as he was often the only doctor to certify a death. Smith's estimate of Shipman's total victim count over that 27-year period was 250. The GMC charged six doctors, who signed cremation forms for Shipman's victims, with misconduct, claiming they should have noticed the pattern between Shipman's home visits and his patients' deaths. All these doctors were found not guilty. In October 2005, a similar hearing was held against two doctors who worked at Tameside General Hospital in 1994, who failed to detect that Shipman had deliberately administered a "grossly excessive" dose of morphine. The Shipman Inquiry recommended changes to the structure of the GMC. In 2005, it came to light that Shipman may have stolen jewellery from his victims. In 1998, police had seized over £10,000 worth of jewellery they found in his garage. In March 2005, when Primrose asked for its return, police wrote to the families of Shipman's victims asking them to identify the jewellery. Unidentified items were handed to the Assets Recovery Agency in May. The investigation ended in August. Authorities returned 66 pieces to Primrose and auctioned 33 pieces that she confirmed were not hers. Proceeds of the auction went to Tameside Victim Support. The only piece returned to a murdered patient's family was a platinum diamond ring, for which the family provided a photograph as proof of ownership. A memorial garden to Shipman's victims, called the Garden of Tranquillity, opened in Hyde Park, Hyde, on 30 July 2005. As of early 2009, families of over 200 of the victims of Shipman were still seeking compensation for the loss of their relatives. In September 2009, letters Shipman wrote in prison to friends were to be sold at auction, but following complaints from victims' relatives and the media, the sale was withdrawn. Shipman effect The Shipman case, and a series of recommendations in the Shipman Inquiry report, led to changes to standard medical procedures in the UK (now referred to as the "Shipman effect"). Many doctors reported changes in their dispensing practices, and a reluctance to risk over-prescribing pain medication may have led to under-prescribing. Death certification practices were altered as well. Perhaps the largest change was the movement from single-doctor general practices to multiple-doctor general practices. This was not a direct recommendation, but rather because the report