NOT ANOTHER QUESTIONNAIRE - ELICITING THE VIEWS OF GENERAL-PRACTITIONERS

General practitioners have a central role to play in relation to plann ing and delivery of primary and community care services. This paper re ports the experience of one health board in using a postal survey to a scertain the views of local GPs concerning services for people sufferi ng from dementia. The survey was sent out once only and had a 41% resp onse rate. Non-responding GPs were surveyed to ascertain reasons for f ailure to respond initially to the survey. The commonest reason given was that GPs felt they were being swamped with questionnaires. The pap er discusses the problems of accessing GP opinion when time and resour ces are limited, the alternative strategies that could have been emplo yed and the way forward in the light of the experience.