OBJECTIVES: To explore the relationship between the length of a General Practitioner consultation and the number of prescriptions issued. Initially it is necessary to establish if any trends exist in prescriber activity and consultation length. METHODS: The DIN-LINK database was used to obtain data on prescriber activity. DIN-LINK is a longitudinal patient database comprising over 3.8 million electronic patient records and is populated with data from General Practices across Great Britain. This analysis was based on patients consulting with a GP in the year to August 2004. Data on the number of prescriptions issued in a consultation in the database were stratified by consultation length, with 1-3 minutes being the lowest consultation length band, and 21-24 minutes the highest band. A 13-15 minute band was included as it constituted the central value of this stratification. The unpaired student t-test was used to test for statistical significance between groups. RESULTS: The cohort for this analysis comprised 467,446 patients, of whom 45% were male. The mean age of the cohort was 42.4 years. Over the one-year period, the cohort had 2,425,790 consultations, during which 2,181,974 prescriptions were issued. Statistically significant differences in the mean number of prescriptions per consultation were found between the lowest and central band, and the lowest and highest band (p<0.001). At a consultation length of 1-3 minutes, GPs prescribed an average of 0.6 prescriptions per consultation. This value peaked and plateaued at 1.1 prescriptions per consultation at a consultation length of 13-15 minutes. CONCLUSIONS: Prescribing increased as consultation length increased up to 13-15 minutes, after which a plateau in prescriber activity was seen. This suggests that the incremental benefit of consultations over 15 minutes may be limited. Further study is planned with quantification of the relationship between consultation length and prescriber activity. Regression analysis is planned for 2005.