ABSTRACT
About one million general practitioner (GP) consultations take place in the UK each working day (Gregory, 2009). The meeting between a GP and a patient, at which health-related issues are presented and explored and management decisions made, provides the material with which general practice works. Understanding what happens in a consultation
is key to understanding the role of the GP. To focus on the consultation is a valuable and manageable task from which further exploration of primary care medicine can follow.
