General practitioners need to know more and more about the complicated tests performed in hospitals. For most patients the GP is an accessible trusted and reliable source of information and advice. So when patients under hospital follow-up are confused about their treatment they often turn to their GP. In addition general practitioners have open access to an increasing array of hospital-based investigations and in the context of clinical governance they have a greater responsibility to understand and use them properly. This guide provides a compendium of all those hospital-based tests which the GP is likely to encounter organised according to specialty. It also includes the rather more specialised tests available only to the relevant consultant but which GPs might end up having to explain to perplexed patients. Each chapter is written by a specialist in the field and the book is edited by a general practitioner to be presented in a uniform digestible way. This essential resource enables GPs to order secondary care investigations confidently and rationally and to answer patients' queries with authority.