ABSTRACT
There are four main aspects of the need for health services: demography and epidemiologym, effectiveness, comparisons and the corporate view. An assessment of need attempts to go beyond current patterns of service usage to identify people who would be able to benefit from a service if they used it. The current intention of the Department of Health is to move towards a primary care-led National Health Service. In particular; commissioning of health services should be primary care-led. Earlier policy statements emphasized that commissioning decisions should be based as far as possible on some systematic assessment of the health needs of the population. Primary care services typically serve small populations of perhaps 5000-10000 compared to the population of 200000 or more which may be served by an acute general hospital. Because primary care practitioners often maintain long-term contact with their patients, they have the opportunity to acquire detailed knowledge of patients' circumstances and preferences.
