ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book focuses on the context of the patient in his or her own milieu and how this might affect the ethics of their care are essentially derived from principle rather than the product of a framework of observation. The familiar ethical terrain describes the principle of autonomy as pre-eminent and absolute, but the lesson from primary care is that it is not always so, nor perhaps should it always be so. The book describes the roles of any primary care clinician is to advocate for their patients and potentially that may involve crossing a guideline boundary. It argues that a brisk or dubious attitude to clinical guidelines may benefit individual patients more where the role of clinical judgement can be allied to knowledge of protocols essentially based on population measures.
