The battle for health : a political history of the Socialist Medical Association, 1930-51
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The battle for health : a political history of the Socialist Medical Association, 1930-51
(The history of medicine in context)
Ashgate, c1999
- : hc
Available at 5 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [235]-247
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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.
by "Nielsen BookData"