As with other sectors of the health care system, general practice becomes more and more involved in the process of priority setting. The daily decisions of general practitioners about whether or not to refer, investigate or prescribe frequently reflect implicit prioritisation.’ There is no doubt that in the field of primary health care, the inclusion of the patient’s perspective into the process of priority setting is of utmost importance. The question is how this can be implemented at the local level. In 1972 the concept of patient participation groups in general practice became a reality, when two practices at Aberdare: and Berinsfield,) established them. In the seventies and eighties patient participation groups have been developed in different European countries. The term patient participation covers a lot of different activities: receiving information (reading practice leaflets, listening to organised conferences on health promotion, etc.), volunteers’ activities (visiting and helping the sick, elderly and disabled; providing transport for those who can not reach health care facilities; co-editing a health-newsletter, etc.), and participation in policy making. In this journal an overview is presented on the quality and content of GP-practice leaflets in the United Kingdom.‘ The research shows that if adequate information in the practice leaflet is a key issue for the quality of care. The involvement of patient participation groups in policy making and especially in priority setting at the local level has revealed several problems.s The first problem is how representative are group members of the practice population: a study in a general practice in Oxfordshire demonstrated that only 45% of the patients were aware of the existence of a patient participation group and only 7% had ever attended a meeting6 Awareness of the group was significantly less in men, patients aged between 16 and 29 years, those in social classes 4 and 5, single people and