Hospital consultants--an influence on G.P. prescribing? A pilot study.

Ten thousand National Health Service prescriptions for drugs used in rheumatology, written by 300 general medical practitioners within one Area Health Authority area during one month were analysed. Thirty-six different preparations were prescribed. The prescriptions of three consultants in rheumatology from before the sample period were also analysed. Prescribing patterns were compared, in particular between G.P.s and the consultant to whom the G.P. usually referred his 'rheumatology' patients. Although the correlation coefficients between each consultant and each doctor-group studied were not found to be significant at the 5% level, implying little if any influence by the consultant on the prescribing of these G.P.s, a number of interesting features were noted which seem worthy of further study.