Accurate information on the costs of providing primary health care (PHC) services is now an urgent priority for health policy makers and planners, if the Government's stated commitment to an adequate PHC system is to be realised.

Cost information is also a critical management tool for both public and private sector providers.

In, this context, the inability of public sector PHC providers to generate accurate cost accounting information is a serious shortcoming.

In an attempt to address this lack of local PHC cost data, a detailed analysis of the costs of PHC services was undertaken at the Diepkloof Community Health Centre (DK) in Soweto during 1990.

The study aimed to assess the cost of each service provided at DK and where possible, to identify areas of inefficiency.