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As I write, our coalition government's Health and Social Care Bill has just been published.1 While not impinging directly on clinical priorities, the Bill is likely to concentrate the minds of all GPs involved in allocation of resources — including clinical time. And time spent on relationships with patients aimed at ‘ongoing support without expectation of cure’2 may at first sight seem an asset ripe for ‘efficiency savings’. In the linked study in this issue of the BJGP , Cocksedge et al describe the experiences of a selected group of GPs and patients with these holding relationships.2 This personal element of care is emphasised repeatedly in the literature.3,4,5 How relevant is it to today's context?For the practising GP, it is a fact of life that patients come with more than one problem. However, when I was getting careers advice as a young researcher a generation ago, the message was loud and clear: ‘focus and specialise, be selective!’. Most have followed this advice and one result is that in general practice, as elsewhere, our evidence-based medicine is targeted on guidelines derived from single disease research. Many GPs have pointed out the problems this raises,6 but only in the last decade has awareness of the challenge of multimorbidity …

Holding relationships in general practice: What are they? How do they work? Are they worth having?