ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book concentrates on revealing the key underlying issues that inhibit effective relationships and developments in general practice and consequently hamper the effective integration of the requirements of clinical governance and revalidation. It relies heavily on illustrating and emphasising these through examples rooted in real life. The book offers lessons drawn from peculiar and privileged experience. Those lessons are as relevant to all practices today as they were to the individual practices that benefited directly at the time. The book includes the policy and decision makers, commentators and observers of the primary care world, for whom knowledge of how general practice works is vital. It reflects on potential future developments in primary care, and how the underlying problems identified and the lessons learnt relate to that future.
