Full documentation of this essay would require several pages, so only a few sources are quoted here. The title is a quotation from a speech by Mr. A. Greenwood (Commons Official Report, Vol. 398, 17-3-44).
2.
For full documentation and a fuller account the reader is referred to the author's unpublished doctoral thesis in the library of the University of Birmingham ‘Interest groups and the National Health Service Act, 1946’ (1953).
3.
Beveridge1942—‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ Cmd 6404, 1942.
4.
Braithwaite—see ‘Lloyd George's Ambulance Wagon’—the memoirs of W. J. Braithwaite. (1957)
5.
Brown1941—House of Commons Official Report, Vol. 374 c1116, 9.10.41., 1943, Vol. 386 16–18 Feb., 1943.
6.
B.M.A.—‘A general medical service’ B.M.A. 1938—B.M.J. (Supp) 30.4.38, cf also many memoranda to Beveridge Committee, e.g. those of the Royal College of Nursing and the Nat. Ass. of Insurance Committees. This proposal, often called the 90% proposal, would have involved the expansion of coverage to persons in like economic situation to N.H.I. contributors and to their dependents. For an account of N.H.I. see LevyH.‘National Health Insurance’ (1944).
7.
Eckstein—‘Pressure Group Politics—the Case of the B.M.A.’EcksteinH. (1960) and by the same author ‘English Health Services’ (1959).
8.
Harris1943—The Brown plan can be shown to bear great similarities to three other plans. Two of them were by N.A.L.G.O. and Soc M.O.H. (Sir John Charles, then Chief M.O.H. at the Ministry was an ex-L.A. Medical Officer) and the third (Harris, R. W., B.M.J. Supp 16.1.43) was by an ex-Asst. Sec. at the Ministry.
9.
Lancet 1942—For example see ‘Interim Report of Medical Planning Research’, Lancet 21.11.42—no final report was ever published.
10.
Lancet 1946—Leader in Lancet on the Act—Lancet 16.11.46.
11.
Morrison1943—Different words were used to describe contacts between groups. For Mr. Morrison consultation was ‘a very blessed word’ (Commons O.R. Vol. 386 c. 2047). In the same debate the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood) said that ‘matters . … should be settled by negotiations …’ (Commons O.R. Vol. 386 c. 1832). Later Mr. Bevan was to claim ‘negotiation . … (would) spell the death of the House of Commons’ (Commons O.R. Vol. 422 c. 60-1). One group coined a new word to meet the semantic problem ‘discussiation’ (Medical World 18.6.43).
12.
N.P.H.T.—The Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust had earlier talked of regionalism over ‘natural hospital areas’. About this time there seems to have been a growing interest in regionalism for hospitals over ‘natural areas’.
13.
Spens—In all there were three such committees:
14.
Inter-Dept. Committee on the remuneration of g.p.'s Cmd 6800.
15.
ditto dentists Cmd 7402.
16.
ditto consultants Cmd 7420.
17.
Titmuss1950—TitmussR. M.Problems of Social Policy (1950).
18.
W.P. 1944—‘A National Health Service’ Cmd 6502–1944.
19.
Willink1945—In a Commons debate after the change of Government, Mr. Willink said that ‘in the result by the end of May (1945) we had reached a stage where … . a structure had emerged likely to command such general agreement that it was possible to begin … . drafting the necessary legislation’. In a memorandum to the Select Committee on Estimates in 1951 and published in Municipal Review, December, 1951, the Association of Municipal Corporations referred to a plan circulated by the Minister of Health on 1st March, 1945.
