ABSTRACT
The Socialist Medical Association’s (SMA) founders had come to view the State Medical Service Association's lack of political focus and identification as one of its principal weaknesses. Affiliation to the Labour Party was therefore perceived as a major breakthrough in left-wing medical politics, not least because it gave the Association a platform - the annual party conference - from which to address the wider labour movement. The SMA can be regarded as having experienced mixed fortunes in its attempts to push the Labour Party towards its vision of a socialised service. The Labour Party's Public Health Advisory Committee, following a spasmodic existence after the First World War, finally expired in the early 1930s. Even in the 1930s, therefore, there were differences inside the labour movement over the structure of socialised health service. In fact, in the 1930s the Association was already aware of the problem of its standing with the industrial wing of the labour movement.
