ABSTRACT
During the vital planning stage, a therapist needs to find out what others think about the concept of introducing patient self-referral. The therapist will need their support throughout but he/she may have to work at cultivating some of these relationships. Critical friends tend to have the following characteristics in common: influence, an interest in innovation, are focused on improving the patient experience, meeting organisational objectives, and are fairly senior in the organisation. Examples of potential ‘critical friends’ could, and should, be include the following: patients and their advocacy groups, board- or senior-level organisational executives and non-executives, service managers, business managers, and lead GPs. Individual GP practices, hospital consultants (in particular those in the specialties for which the therapist provides services), other major referrers to his/her service, and public health departments also can be classified as critical friends. In addition, local service redesign or improvement leads, commissioning managers, and funding providers will also be useful.
