General Practice Revisited

‘This study of general practice and the attitudes of patients and general practitioners to it is the most significant book yet written about the NHS.’ This was how the reviewer in the ‘British Medical Journal’ reviewed Ann Cartwright’s earlier book Patients and their Doctors. In General Practice Revisited, originally published in 1981, Ann Cartwright and Robert Anderson compare the experiences and views described in the first study, carried out in 1964, with those revealed by a second survey in 1977.In the intervening period there were a great many changes in the organization of general practice. For example appointment systems and nurses working in the surgery became the rule rather than the exception, and the number of doctors working in health centres or using deputizing services rose dramatically. This study shows how the basic patient-doctor relationship has been affected by these changes. A fundamental feature of the survey is the demonstration that the attitudes and practices of patients and doctors are linked, and that it is possible to relate the experiences and degree of satisfaction of patients to the doctor’s age, sex, size of practice, equipment, ancillary help, and indeed to the doctor’s views and habits.By bringing the picture of general practice up-to-date Ann Cartwright and Robert Anderson provided the basic data for any discussion of primary health care in this country at the time.