The second stage involved in-depth interviews with practising clinicians throughout the South and West Region. The aim was to develop an understanding and an interpretative framework of the process of interaction between specialists and GPs. I started with a judgement sample framework including variables such as time since qualification, gender, geographical location, rurality,
fundholding status and teaching hospital status. As the data was collected and analysed, an interpretative framework was constructed, so the sampling strategy changed from largely judgement to largely theoretical, in order to build on the developing theory. New themes stopped emerging after about 15 interviews and an acceptable interpretative framework was constructed after 24 interviews—the stage of thematic and theoretical saturation