EDITOR, - As Roger Johnson points out, the Department of Health's initial circular about medical audit advisory groups lacked guidance about the specific functions of the groups.1 It was perhaps because of this uncertainty that funding allocated to family health services authorities took little account of the number of general practices within each authority. Johnson acknowledges that much of his group's funding is spent on support staff and consumables, the need for which is clearly related to the number of general practitioners whom the group liaises with. For large family health services authorities this results in the amount of funding available …