"In the dark days it has been all too easy to lose faith in the core value of primary care. But they have survived because they are robust and are right."

Primary care today plays a greater role than ever before in providing a healthy environment for society. But how can primary care workers deliver optimum individual care to patients within the constraints of ever growing expectations and dwindling resources?

This is the central theme of Primary Care: Core Values in which outstanding thinkers in health care take on the key areas of concern for primary care at the end of the century.

Topics include:

Identifying the core values; patient centered care; contracting; developing primary care gatekeeping; primary care in an imperfect market; patient priorities; evidence and general practice primary care; education; training and professional development; primary care in the good society.

In looking backward and forward, the book provides a rounded picture of what primary care has always stood for and for how its aims can still be achieved in the 21st century. All those involved in both delivering and managing it will find the discussion here an encapsulation of what profession should be striving for.