ABSTRACT
The paper reports on an attempt to examine the operation of a selected group of interrelated services for the elderly in a predominantly rural area of Scotland as part of a wider study aimed at accounting for variations in service patterns and pathways. Findings are not reported here because they have not begun to emerge though they will do so shortly. The research study comrises three main stages the second of which - entry-exit studies - forms the basis of the paper. The other stages are described briefly in the next section. The remainder of the paper then describes the approach adopted in studying decision-making and service interaction.
