RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 General practitioners and the independent contractor status JF The Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners JO J R Coll Gen Pract FD British Journal of General Practice SP 746 OP 752 VO 27 IS 185 A1 D. J. Pereira Gray YR 1977 UL http://bjgp.org/content/27/185/746.abstract AB Primary medical care can be provided either by a bureaucratic hierarchical organization or alternatively by independent contractors. Most members of the caring professions in medicine, nursing, and social work are employed in bureaucracies, whereas general medical practitioners, general dental practitioners, opticians, and pharmacists are independent contractors. The independent contractor status has recently been heavily attacked from within the medical and nursing professions, and also from outside. It has been suggested that contracting for services is an inappropriate and anomalous way of arranging medical care, which should now be stopped. However, this process of contracting for services can be analysed, using perspectives from some of the behavioural sciences, to reveal hidden depths in the independent contractor status which suggest that the provision of primary medical care is best carried out by independent contractors.