"The Battle for Health : A Political History of the Socialist Medical Association, 1930-51

A study of the Socialist Medical Association (SMA), an organization of left-wing medical practitioners founded in 1930 and affiliated to the Labour Party in the following year.

The SMA's aim was a free, comprehensive and universal state medical service, democratically controlled and with all the personnel, including doctors, working as salaried employees.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the organization gained increasing influence over Labour Party health policy, and consequently saw its activities as central to the creation of the National Health Service (NHS).

However, once Labour was actually in power, the SMA became more and more marginalized, in part because of the difficult relationship with the Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan.

Bevan, while inaugurating a service which had many features desired by the Association, none the less felt obliged to make compromises with the medical profession. The SMA's activities are therefore of historical interest in providing a further view of the creation of the NHS, while its ideas and proposals continue to raise serious questions about issues such as the nature and control of social welfare and the possibility of achieving a truly socialized health service.