What do community health doctors do? Survey of their work in the child health service in Nottinghamshire.

There has been considerable national debate recently about the future of community health services and of the community health doctors who work in them. Although much rhetoric has been exchanged, the progress of the debate both locally and nationally has been limited by the lack of data describing either the workload of these doctors or the outcome of their activities. Since community health doctors generally fulfil a preventive, diagnostic, and supportive role, rather than supply a treatment service, collection of relevant workload data on a routine basis has proved difficult. The Korner steering group has recognised this lack of information and, in its fifth report, has pointed to a need for "a sample inquiry to be carried out in each district to determine the proportion of time spent by community health staff on different types of activity."' In Nottingham in 1983 the impending change from a county wide to a district based community child health service provided the impetus for a critical review.