ABSTRACT
This chapter presents four personal perspectives and outlines how the changes have affected the daily working, professional lives of two general practitioners (GPs) and two secondary care physicians. Professor Christopher Hand qualified in 1971 and has been working as a GP since 1976, currently at Bungay, Suffolk. Until his recent retirement he was a Deputy Course Director of the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery programme at the Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia (UEA). In October 1976 the author joined a two-man practice in the market town of Bungay in Suffolk. In 1977 a new partner arrived, and the two practices in Bungay joined forces and converted one of the premises, The Beeches. The centre is run by a charitable trust, where most of the trustees are patients. Any profits are ploughed back into patient care, such as providing individual transport to hospital for patients having chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
