Acronyms have become an unavoidable part of the world of health and social care. Most acronyms stem from central government initiatives, the development of professional language, or from common abbreviation within wider society. This often creates frustration for the lay reader attempting to understand government documents, national and local. In this Programme the convention for tackling this issue is to clarify the meaning of an acronym at its first point of use. For example, Primary Care Trust will have an acronym ‘PCT’ shown in brackets on the first occasion it is employed. Thereafter only the acronym is applied unless the context requires a spelling out of the abbreviation in full. This listing is a summary of the more common acronyms used in this document.

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