The patient and the primary care team: a small-scale critical theory For increasing the understanding of team-based delivery of primary care, ratings of care satisfaction and stimulated-recall interviews were used to compose a small-scale critical theory. Three teams and 24 patients at a community health care centre participated in the study. It was found that the multiprofessional team was vulnerable to discrepancies between the health service policy and the available care resources. If pre-paid patients arrive with too high expectations and demands on the service, a significant part of the team's attention is used for economizing with care procedures. When health and economics are entangled for the team, the patients are not invited to share decisions about their health. The patients' concerns are instead turned to the social arena, which is separated by language and context from the health analysis. Simultaneously, when the teams are led to solve the health problems without involving the patients in the process, the team members convert these to their own personal distress when they fail. The conclusion is that the discrepancy between care policy and factual resources is an important cause of imbalance in patient-primary care team interaction. If service strategy and team organization and resources are not continuously adjusted to each other, the effects will continue to obstruct communication during consultations.