General practitioners are of paramount importance as prescribers throughout the world. Drugs are largely developed, studied and controlled by others, but in the great majority of cases is it a general practitioner who prescribes them to a patient. For the reason he carries much of the ultimate responsibility for the manner in which the patient uses the drugs, and is partly responsible for their ultimate effects, desired or undesired.

Since the increasing cost of health care makes it vital it should be meaningful, efficient and economical, the general practitioner is today inevitably concerned with the cost-effectiveness of his way of working, and this must include a critical approach to the benefits, costs and risks of his own prescribing practices...