Doctors haven’t always been keen on the NHS. A former chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) said in response to the 1946 National Health Service Act, that: ‘It looks to me uncommonly like the first step, and a big one, to National Socialism as practised in Germany.’ In 1948, the BMA claimed that only 4,734 doctors, just over 10 per cent of those polled, were in favour of such a system.
At one point, the Minister for Health and father of the NHS Aneurin Bevan described the BMA as a ‘small body of politically poisoned people’ who had decided to ‘fight the Act… and to stir up as much emotion as they can in the profession’. Among his adversaries was the secretary of the BMA, Charles Hill, who argued healthcare should be paid for by insurance, not taxation.
What a curious perversion this is of the current status quo. Now, it is Conservative politicians who are unequivocal in their praise of the NHS.
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