ABSTRACT
The role of the medical profession in influencing health service organisation will emerge as a potentially important theme in understanding changes in London's health services. As the location, throughout the period under review, of the majority of the country's teaching hospitals, London has also been home to the major organisations of the medical profession and has been seen as the location of the medical establishment. As such, the doctors based in the London teaching hospitals have been seen as the most influential section of the health professions and, indeed, one of the most influential of professional groups. This chapter concentrates more specifically on how well the health care needs of Londoners have been served by the organisational structures which owed a good deal to the views of at least some London-based doctors.
