Professor Garry Courtney:

I am from west Tyrone in Northern Ireland. When we meet, we leave our weapons outside, as it were, and talk about absolutely everything. We totally respect and value our general practitioner colleagues who are completely disrespected and ignored in many parts of the country. I see medical students who will present a case to me in the outpatients department without referring to the general practitioner by name or even to the letter the GP has written. I pull them up on that. There is a culture in place whereby medics do not know what the GP does and do not view it as important in any case.