Decision support in the United Kingdom for general practice: past, present, and future.

This paper looks at three aspects of Decision Support in the UK in relation to primary health care: 1) the past history; 2) the extent and use of clinical computing in general practice today, with the growing appearance of decision support systems; and 3) a brief report from a vision building workshop hosted by 'DECSI' to look at the need doctors will have for decision support in primary health care in the future.