Poole is an affluent and growing community with a total population in excess of 141,000. The communities within Poole are diverse ranging from relatively affluent areas with a large number of retired people near to the sea front to large housing estates with young families further North. Key population facts are: the Poole population is predicted to rise to 145,400 by 2011 and over 30,000 people in Poole are over retirement age equating to 21.5% compared with 15.9% nationally.

The geographical area covered by the participating surgeries encompasses dense urban, suburban and rural populations and includes most socio-economic groups. There are pockets of high social deprivation as well as affluent areas. The participating surgeries within the Adam Practice are Heath Cottage Surgery and Longfleet Road. The surgeries work largely independently but are linked by a common computer system and some GPs work at more than one surgery. Patients can be referred from one surgery to another for specialist clinics. The largest surgery is at Hamworthy and the other three form an almost straight line starting in Poole Town Centre and running in a North Westerly direction into rural Dorset.

The Practice has a list size of 26,948, of which 1,340 are registered as patients with coronary heart disease receiving regular multiple medication.

There are a total of four community pharmacies in the Poole area participating in the medicines management pilot project. These are Lychett Pharmacy, Lychett Matravers (single handed pharmacy), Moss Pharmacy, Hamworthy (chain), Rowlands Pharmacy, based within the Longfleet Road General Practice (chain) and Boots Ltd Pharmacy, located in the Dolphin Shopping Centre in Poole (chain).