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- Page navigation anchor for RE: Research into practice: accessing primary careRE: Research into practice: accessing primary careCampbell and Salisbury provide a good overview of the issues around accessing primary care. They do not mention, however, one important method of reducing demand which is to look at the behaviour of the practice itself. RCGP Scotland ran a series of workshops around Scotland two years ago promoting their Treating Access toolkit.1 From this experience, it was clear that for many practices the reasons that access was poor was either system inefficiencies (especially calling patients with multi-morbidities to several review appointments) or doctors having high return appointment rates. It can be a challenge for GPs to change this risk tolerance behaviour but it is possible. Both of these issues are within the control of the practice and thus amenable to change.Reference1. Treating Access http://www.rcgp.org.uk/rcgp-near-you/rcgp-scotland/treating-access.aspxCompeting Interests: None declared.