ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Association's activities in the labour movement, the government's 1944 White Paper on the future of the health services, and the Socialist Medical Association’s (SMA) position as the war in Europe came to an end. An important opportunity for the SMA to exploit this potential came with the formation of the British Medical Association’s Medical Planning Commission. The Medical Practitioners' Union (MPU) first met on 7 May 1941 with a brief to 'study wartime developments and their effects on the country's medical services both present and future'. The SMA also came to an accommodation with the MPU, albeit an uneasy and shifting accommodation. Although differences emerged - the MPU remained consistently hostile to any suggestion of local authority control - a joint statement was produced early in 1941 stressing the need for a 'whole time salaried medical service, free to the public, without direct contribution or income limit, and including all doctors willing to join'.
