The health needs of their individual patients. Through professional training and clinical experience, we have developed a systematic approach to this assessment and we use it before starting a treatment that we believe to be effective. Such a systematic approach has often been lacking when it comes to assessing the health needs of a local or working population. An external file containing an image, illustration, etc. The name of the object is wrij01na.f1.jpg The health needs of patients passing through the consulting room door may not reflect the health needswider community. If people have a health problem that they believe cannot be helped by the health service, they will not attend. For example, many people with angina or multiple sclerosis are not known to their local GP or specialist