British Medical Association

The BMA also has a number of committees which represent other specialities and interests which affect its members, including:

• Medical Ethics
• Board of Medical Education
• Equality and Diversity Committee
• Pensions
• Armed Forces
• Civil and Public Services Committee
• International Committee
• Medico-Legal
• Occupational Health
• GP Trainees' Subcommittee[7]

The BMA has a Medical Ethics Committee[8] provides guidance to the association on current and developing issues in medical ethics. It is widely seen as one of the foremost authorities on ethical issues in the UK and international medical field. The committee debates issues of principle including those touching on:

The BMA supports armed forces doctors through its Armed Forces Committee (AFC) which represents clinicians in all parts of the armed forces, whether they are deployed to war zones, acting as reservists or civilian doctors employed by the Ministry of Defence.[9] A large part of the AFC's work is the production of evidence to the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB). The AFPRB advises on remuneration for members of the naval, military, and air forces. Further to this work, the AFC negotiates with the Ministry of Defence on the terms and conditions for civilian doctors.[10] The committee holds two conferences a year; an Armed Forces Committee conference usually in May and a Civilian Doctors' conference usually in October.

The BMA supports doctors that undertake private practice outside the NHS through its Private Practice Committee. This body considers topics facing both private consultants and general practitioners.[11] The committee meets three times a year and holds conferences in relation to private practice. The main issues currently being dealt with by the committee include looking at the implementation of revalidation in the independent sector and addressing difficulties that doctors experience in relation to new ways of working by the private medical insurers.

The British Medical Association traces its origins to the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association (PMSA), founded by Sir Charles Hastings on 19 July 1832, and to the "British Medical Association" founded by George Webster in 1836. Ten years after its initial meeting the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association's membership had grown to 1,350 and it had begun to publish a weekly journal, The Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. In 1853 the PMSA extended its membership to London doctors and 1856 transformed itself into the British Medical Association. From 1857 their journal was known as the British Medical Journal or BMJ.

Logo used for the BMA's Sixty-fifth Annual Meeting, Montreal, 1897

Although not initially formed with the aim of initiating medical reform, the BMA played a key role in the drafting and passing of the Medical Act 1858, which established the General Medical Council and set a standard for qualified and unqualified doctors and established a system of professional regulation. Prior to this anyone, qualified or not, could practice as a doctor. This also positioned the BMA to play a major role in future medical politics, campaigning on issues such as Poor Law Medicine, quackery, public health, alternative and military medicine, and contract practice. During this time one of the most active and influential of the association's bodies was the Parliamentary Bills Committee, formed in 1863 to take a leading role in influencing legislation on public health matters.[17]

In May 1911 the Government introduced the National Health Insurance Bill which presented the BMA with new challenges. This bill introduced the idea that for a maximum contribution of four pence a week every employed person in the country could be insured against treatment costs for sickness. The BMA supported the principle but had a number of reservations about the scheme including the lack of doctor involvement in delivering the medical benefits, which were instead being delivered by friendly societies and trade unions. In response the BMA produced "Six Cardinal Points" which it felt should be included in any legislation.

At the BMA's general meeting in July 1912, incoming president Sir James Barr condemned the National Health Insurance Bill as "the most gigantic fraud which had ever been perpetrated on the public since the South Sea Bubble." Addressing "a large and distinguished audience," Barr "spoke eloquently and forcibly in favour of the improvement of the race by attention to eugenics, and pointed out the necessity of preventing disease as well of curing it. No serious attempt, he said, had yet been made to prevent the race from being carried on by its least worthy citizens." Barr explained that: "If such an attempt was to be successful we must begin with the unborn. The race must be renewed from the mentally and physically fit, and moral and physical degenerates should not be allowed to take any part in adding to it".[18]

Ultimately the final bill was passed in 1913 in which four of the six points had been included. This resulted in an income limit of £2 per week being set to join the scheme, there was to be free choice of doctor by patient, the payment to the doctor should be adequate, and finally there should be adequate medical representation among the various bodies working on the Act.

With the start of World War I, the BMA formed a Central Medical War Committee (CMWC), and was given responsibility by the government for managing the demand for doctors in the armed forces whilst maintaining a full medical service for civilians. The BMA repeated this role during World War II. During this time the BMA also campaigned on issues such as the production and marketing of "secret remedies", nutrition and physical fitness, the relationship of alcohol to road accidents, and the medical aspects of abortion.

Early in the Second World War, the BMA became aware of the need for a change in the provision of medical care to the public after the end of the war and during peacetime, so shortly after the war, the BMA had produced its own plan for a "general medical service for the nation".[19][20]

• 2018: Chokroverty, Sudhansu; Ferini-Strambi, Luigi (2017). Oxford Textbook of Sleep Disorders. Oxford UP. ISBN 9780199682003.[40]
• 2017: Neinstein, Lawrence S; Katzman, Debra K.; et al. (2016). Neinstein's Adolescent and Young Adult Health Care: A Practical Guide, 6th edition. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. ISBN 978-1451190083.[41]