Introduction

The National Health Service (NHS), often portrayed as the crowning achievement of the post-war Labour governments' 'welfare state', celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1998. One organisation which, at least by its own account, played an important role in the service's creation was the Socialist Medical Association (SMA), founded in 1930 and affiliated to the Labour Party the following year. The Association has received a mixed press in scholarly studies of the political origins of the NHS. Ray Earwicker's unpublished doctoral thesis on the labour movement and the origins of the NHS situates the SMA in the wider field of left-wing proposals for health care reform, and is thus a vital source of information. The Labour Party as a whole had mixed feelings about its affiliate medical organization. However, despite the SMA's importance in laying the groundwork for the NHS some of its key, aspirations remained unfulfilled. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.