ABSTRACT
In 1950, Joseph Silver Collings published his findings in The Lancet. His report, entitled ‘General practice in England today: a reconnaissance’, took up nearly half the issue of the journal. Two years after the start of the National Health Service, The Collings Report highlighted the failings in general practice. It revealed the broad disparity in the quality of service provided. Contrary to popular opinion at the time, Collings described rural practices as generally providing superior health care than those in urban areas. Policy makers contemporaneously believed city-based doctors benefitted from collaborations with academic medical centres and greater access to continuing medical education. Collings primarily blamed the state of general practice on its leadership, in addition to policy makers and specialty societies. The main analytical criticism of The Collings Report was in regards to the unique ethnographic techniques that Collings employed producing it.
