1. Introduction and Membership of Working Group 1.1 In February 1985 the Council of the British Cardiac Society formed six working groups to consider the adequacy and needs of specific cardiac services. The aim of each working group was to assemble data and to -formulate recommendations for subsequent ratification by the British Cardiac Society. It was envisaged that documents would eventually be made available
2. Requests for reprints to the Secretary of the British Cardiac Society,7
3. Workload and facilities 3.1 In the United Kingdom almost as many patients die from diseases of the circulation as from all other causes put together. In 1984 the ICD codes
4. *Available on request from the office of the British Cardiac Society.
5. Ambulatory monitoring The mode for workload in dynamic electrocardiography was less than 100 investigations per year per 100 000 population (fig 4). The workload here too is increasing and the numbers in 1985 did not reflect future needs. There is an additional factor: many hospitals with recording facilities do not have equipment for analysis. Because this sometimes has to be arranged on a payment basis it artificially constrains the numbers of examinations. We believe, on the basis of our own experience, that,about 200