ABSTRACT
Traditionally, within the UK and many other countries worldwide, patients gain access to therapy practitioners primarily through two channels: by referring themselves directly to private providers and by securing an onward referral from a doctor. Before we start to consider the practicalities of introducing patient self-referral, it is useful to remember that private therapy practitioners all over the world have a long and successful track record of providing services to patients who refer themselves. The first reported examples of patient self-referral initiatives to emerge during the late 1990s were primarily nurse-led. They were introduced to improve patient access to services and to provide continuity of care, but also as an answer to some of the workforce recruitment problems that GPs were facing at that time. Reports of the evaluations of these services generated further interest and the potential relevance of patient self-referral to other therapy services, including physiotherapy, started to develop.
