General practitioners' opinions about their responsibility for medical tasks: comparison between England and The Netherlands.

A questionnaire survey compared a sample of 371 general practitioners in the Avon region of England with 74 general practitioners in the east of the Netherlands. A list of 14 medical tasks--six technical tasks and eight chronic disease management tasks--was presented and the doctors indicated whether each task was totally, often, sometimes, seldom or not at all the responsibility of the general practitioner. The results show that English general practitioners felt more responsibility for chronic problems than the Dutch doctors whereas Dutch general practitioners felt more responsibility for technical tasks than the English. Fewer general practitioners in both countries felt responsible for technical tasks than for chronic disease. Reasons for the differences in terms of the structure of general practice and training are discussed.