The characteristics of the practices collaborating in the study were representative of those in England, indicating good external validity.
Most of these changes, involve a shift from practices collaborating in small-scale call rotations to the development of large scale organisations [ 1- 3].
Four general practices were selected from 10 Birmingham practices collaborating in Birmingham and Lambeth Liver Evaluation Testing Strategies (BALLETS), a prospective study of abnormal liver function tests in England (12).
We are grateful to all the staff in the Oxfordshire general practices that collaborated in OXVASC.
All practices collaborate with the same regional laboratory (SHL Center for Diagnostic Support in Primary Care, Etten-Leur, The Netherlands) for all biochemical tests.
While the qualitative interviews showed the development of formal collaborations, the quantitative and qualitative data combined showed it would be misleading to suggest that private practice physicians have not collaborated in the care of their tumor patients previously.
MRS collaborated in data analysis.
She also collaborated in editing the manuscript.
CSM collaborated in the siRNA analysis.
LJQJr collaborated in monitoring pharmacological studies.
