This paper looks at differences in primary health care between the inner city and suburban areas of the North-East London Faculty of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Most of the differences observed were in the expected direction. However, the inner city area did not appear worse off in terms of the proportion of doctors specifically trained for general practice, the availability of doctors outside normal surgery hours, the links between general practitioners and hospitals and the attitudes of doctors to change. The data were derived from a postal survey of general practitioner principals whose main surgery was in the faculty area.