Practitioners mainly communicate about their patients via letters; it is an important part of the process by which a history is understood and enables us to explain and justify our clinical decisions. We will examine our duty to express the patient's history clearly and accurately, as well as our legal obligations of confidentiality and data protection. We will also look at common misunderstandings that occur in diagnostic language and pain prescriptions and in translating acupuncture language into vernacular and medical language.

Adrian Lyster has worked in primary care with GPs for 20 years, setting up a number of acupuncture and combined complementary and alternative medicine clinics within the NHS. He is a clinical tutor for postgraduate GPs and lectures nationally for the BAcC, Arthritis Research Council and Primary Care Rheumatology Society. He is committed to developing working relationships with the NHS.