Abstract
'Clinical Practice Guidelines' — a Google search using this term netted 26 200 000 results in 0.43 seconds. Guidelines are as unmanageable as the research they were designed to summarise. Guidelines were intended to bring the best scientific evidence to bear on primary care practice — an upgrade from the Blue Book that we used to carry in case of knowledge emergencies as a house surgeon. Guidelines have now moved beyond this — the quality of family practitioners' care is increasingly measured by guideline adherence.