Abstract
THE Health of the Nation white paper has prescribed an important role for primary health care in the key priority area of coronary heart disease prevention. One of the recommendations is to explore ways of developing existing health promotion arrangements in primary care in response to the national strategy. This study aimed to discover what these existing arrangements were through a postal survey and in- depth interviews with a random sample of general practitioners (GPs) in England during 1991 and 1992. The results show GPs' involvement was mainly con fined to risk factor assessment and management in the consultation, although there was little evidence of systematic risk assessment. The majority of the practices had well-person clinics, usually run by a practice nurse, where there was a greater likelihood of systematic tests and measurements. The impli cations of these findings are discussed.
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