of their members on the other. The concern of external stakeholders may be in mobilizing the credibility and expertise of the profession in collective activity on public health issues, while members are also concerned with the economic viability and autonomy of their practice.

In this paper, we describe the outcomes of a consultative process undertaken by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (referred to hereafter as the RACGP or the College) to examine the most effective ways for the College to respond to the important issue of health inequalities. The RACGP, with over 14500 members, is the largest single professional medical college in Australia. The College\'s mission is \"To benefit our communities by ensuring high quality clinical practice, education, and research for Australian general practice, and supporting ourcollege
  External college respondents   43        Representatives of ADGP (the peak body of Divisions of GP in Australia)\* and GPPAC (at the time the peak advisory body to the Federal Minister for Health), heads of academic Departments of General Practice, University Departments of Rural Health, consumer groups and a national PHC quality assurance program
  Focus group participants       11        Urban and rural GP

\*Divisions of General Practice are geographic organizations of GPs established in 1992 by the Government. They are local organizations that unite GPs and increase their capacity to work co-operatively with each other and other health providers.

Interviews consisted of a mixture of semi-structured open-ended questions