Patients' involvement in medical audit in general practice

The paper considers how patients might be involved in medical audit. It argues that there are ethical, political, and clinical justifications for widening the current 'medical model' to include patients' views of mainly sociopsychological matters, and that these are intrinsic to the delivery of health care and evaluations of its quality. The potential barriers to such involvement are doctor-patient relationships; the culture of general practice; the existing pattern of audit; and the lack of organization amongst patients. None of these barriers is seen as insurmountable and the paper concludes that audit could be extended to include practice-based initiatives within medically defined communities of interest.