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Focuses on the reaction of the British Medical Association to the proposals contained in the white paper 'Working for Patients' in Great Britain. Concerns on the harmful effects of the proposals; Opposition to centralized bureaucracy and the methods for paying doctors; Criticisms on the lack of proper consultation with the medical profession.

Features the white paper and the details to the government contract for general practitioners in Great Britain. Reduction of the working hours of junior doctors; Views of rural practitioners of the new contract; Discussion on the anxiety among honorary secretaries of the British Medical Association on the annual gathering.

The article suggests that the efforts of the British government to reform the National Health Service (NHS) are under threat from other factors that aim to hasten competition in the health service, according to the British Medical Association (BMA) in October 2010. As mentioned in the government's White Paper "Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS," reform efforts will allow more control to patients and frontline clinicians and promote stronger attention on public health. The other arguments of BMA are further explained by chairman Hamish Meldrum.

Reports the commitment of British Medical Association medical students on medical education and training in the white paper and working papers. Necessity of medical education to become competent doctors; Clarity on the obligation of self-governing hospitals to provide undergraduate teaching; Importance of postgraduate training to achieve cost reductions.

Focuses on the campaign against the white paper related to patient care in the National Health Service in Great Britain. Debate on the proposals by the British Medical Association council; Discussions on the letter from the chief medical officer; Implications of the white paper to professional awareness.

The article provides information about the development of the journal "Archives of Disease in Childhood." The British Medical Association (BMA) has founded the journal in 1926. In 1977, the BMA and British Pediatric Association (BPA) became partners and shared profits and losses with up to 800 copies given to BPA members. Years passed by, the journal has adapted new technology and become more friendly to the reader. It has embraced standard approaches to assessment and criticisms of papers.

The demand for organs prompted the first use of elective ventilation in the UK in the 1990s. Recently the shortfall in supply of organs has once again prompted calls for elective ventilation to be instituted even in patients who are not brain dead. This paper proposes that the term 'elective' ventilation is a misnomer and the term non-therapeutic ventilation (NTV) should be used instead. It is further argued that the practice of NTV in cases of severe stroke is unethical and has the potential of causing a variety of harms to the patient, their relatives, and the healthcare professionals working in transplant teams and this may result in a backlash of reductions in the number of organ donations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policy on alcohol in the UK relies on health promotion campaigns that encourage individuals who misuse alcohol to make healthier choices about their drinking. Individuals with alcohol-dependence syndrome have an impaired capacity to choose health. As a result, individuals with the worst alcohol misuse problems lie largely outside the reach of choice-based policy. However, such policy has been widely criticized and efforts to reform it are underway. This paper argues that the British Medical Association's recent attempt to improve policy on alcohol in the UK by introducing strategies which have been shown to control drinking within populations still gives insufficient attention to alcohol dependence. This is because it fails accurately and consistently to characterize alcohol dependence and gives insufficient attention to the social challenges it presents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the view that British medical parliamentarians were a rare breed whose limited presence was felt most during the late-Victorian period. Focused on the interwar "movement" for a medical lobby in Parliament, it identifies 159 medical candidates (of whom 72 were elected). It traces the motivations of the British Medical Association in promoting this movement, and shows how the BMA's goals were subverted in part by the identity interests and agendas of the medical men and women who sought election. The paper also highlights some of the alternative political strategies that the profession attempted to use to promote its interests. In addition to providing a window on the culture and politics of British medicine in the interwar period, it explains why the place of doctors in the House of Commons cannot be seen as contributing to the emergence of professional society as defined by Harold Perkin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 introduced a statutory framework for advance decisions, thus promoting autonomous healthcare decision making in advance of loss of capacity. In order to be valid and applicable, and so binding on healthcare professionals, advance decisions refusing treatment ( ADRT) must specify treatments to be refused and the circumstances of refusal. Recent case-law indicates that a high level of specificity is required for advance refusals of life-sustaining treatment and, in contrast to a presumption of capacity for contemporaneous decisions, in some circumstances capacity must be demonstrated at the time of making the advance decision. In comparison with the 'stringent' requirements for ADRT, the more generic Advance Care Planning ( ACP) is gaining more prominence in end of life decision making. The paper explores recent case-law and its impact on the effectiveness of ADRT in practice and compares with ACP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many jurisdictions require cyclists to wear bicycle helmets. The UK is currently not one of these. However, an increasing number of interest groups, including the British Medical Association, want to change the status quo. They argue that mandatory cycle helmet laws will reduce the incidence of head injuries and that this will be both good for cyclists (because they will suffer fewer head injuries) and good for society (because the burden of having to treat cyclists suffering from head injuries will be reduced). In this paper we argue against this position. We suggest that cycle helmets may not be especially effective in reducing head injuries and we suggest that the imposition of such a restrictive law would violate people's freedom and reduce their autonomy. We also argue that those who accept such a restrictive law would be committed to supporting further legislation which would force many other groups -- including pedestrians -- to take fewer risks with their health. We conclude that cycle helmet legislation should not be enacted in the UK unless, perhaps, it is restricted to children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current General Medical Council (GMC) guidelines state that any doctor who does not wish to carry out a non-therapeutic circumcision (NTC) on a boy must invoke conscientious objection. This paper argues that this is illogical, as it is clear that an ethical doctor will object to conducting a clinically unnecessary operation on a child who cannot consent simply because of the parents' religious beliefs. Comparison of the GMC guidelines with the more sensible British Medical Association guidance reveals that both are biased in favour of NTC and subvert standard consent procedures. It is further argued that any doctor who does participate in NTC of a minor may be guilty of negligence and in breach of the Human Rights Act. In fact, the GMC guidance implies that doctors must claim conscientious objection if they do not wish to be negligent. Both sets of guidelines should be changed to ensure an objective consent process and avoid confusion over the ethics of NTC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The paper considers how attributes and skills fundamental to the information profession may be applied to the development and management of Web-based services and resources. It also looks at the need for the acquisition of new skills as part of a continuing professional development programme. The report considers the changing role of the Webmaster and the implications this might have in terms of the role of information professionals. To offer a practical example, from within the healthcare sector, the article goes on to describe the development of BMA Library Online. This is the BMA Library’s own suite of Web-based information services and resources for personal members, institutional members and staff. The library’s own Web team has been responsible for the development and maintenance of BMA Library Online. To conclude, the paper looks forward to future possibilities for information professionals as Web developers and at how this might be influenced by changes in the Webmaster role. It is crucial that skills and expertise are shared as the roles that go to make up a Webmaster or Webmaster team continue to merge and evolve, and with the possible wider distribution of provision of Web content within organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on steps laid down by the government of Great Britain, with respect to its plans to reform the National Health Service (NHS). Budget that will be allotted to Primary Care Trusts to commission healthcare services, is discussed. A Command Paper, Liberating the NHS: Legislative Framework and Next Steps, has been published by the Government. Reactions of bodies like the British Medical Association (BMA), and Royal College of Nursing (RCN), are given.

In a paper in the last issue of Clinical Medicine, some of the background to attitudes to newly dead bodies, the current context of an urgent need for organs for transplant and the objections to calling a proposal to address this 'presumed consent' were outlined. Here further concerns are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article gives an overview of the development, remit, structure and working of the British Medical Association's Medical Ethics Committee. It situates it within a brief history of the Association and gives examples of current work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the nineteenth-century debate about medical quackery in Britain, to examine its implications for the history of modern advertising. It makes two related claims. First, the prevalent view of advertising as a field prone to exaggeration, often taken as obvious, has a legal history. The circumstances of the quackery debate led to a legal elaboration and formalization of views of advertising as an epistemologically doubtful but not illegal field. Second, advertising's status as exaggeration was part of a legally supported cultural division of labour – or legal boundary work, which carved differentiated roles for science and the market in modern Britain whereby science was increasingly defined by restraint, and the market by its lack. The analysis examines the implications, while also offering new insights on the role of law in the history of quackery, and examining untapped sources, particularly a set of libel cases that developed a legal definition of quackery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the activities of British Medical Association (BMA) as of October 1989. Criticism on the freedom of self governing hospitals by the consultants; Effect of the proposition of white paper working for patients by the physicians on medicine; Availability of film and video services at the BMA library.

Reports on the activities of the British Medical Association. Concern of medical academics over white paper; Future of general practice training; Opposition of junior doctors to the National Health Service (NHS); Emphasis on the organizational change of NHS.

The article offers information on the social developments for August to October 1986 in Great Britain. According to the author, since the number of elderly people is rising and people are retiring earlier, the number of pensions being paid out is also increasing. Meanwhile, the report from the Center for Health Economics (CHE) which reaffirms the contention made in an earlier report that the NHS needs an increase in funding of 2 re cent per annum has been jointly commissioned by the Institute of Health Service Management, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing. On the other hand, the details of a plan for a pilot network of 20 City Technology Colleges (CTCs) has been presented by Kenneth Baker.

Amid wider efforts to improve maternal and infant health in Britain around the First World War, public health officials debated making pregnancy a notifiable condition. Although the policy never entered national legislation, a number of local authorities introduced 'notification of pregnancy' schemes in various guises, with at least one surviving until the 1950s. Resistance from private practitioners to infectious diseases notification in the later nineteenth century has been well documented. We know less about opposition to the extension of this measure to maternal and infant welfare, especially from newly professionalising female health occupations. Conflict over notification of pregnancy drew midwives, in particular, into longstanding arguments over the powers of municipal authorities, family privacy and professional ethics. The controversy was the key battleground in negotiations over the organisation of 'antenatal care' as occupational groups of varying degrees of authority sought to define their roles and responsibilities within the emerging health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the results of the election of voting members of the British Medical Association council in Great Britain for the year 1986-87. Data on the election in each region; List of officers elected; Number of voting papers issued nad valid papers returned.

The article focuses on the first five of the 24 recommendations that outline the British Medical Association (BMA) proposals for the high-level governance of the British National Health Service (NHS). These include a recommendation which suggests that a constitution for the NHS should settle an agreement between the government, the NHS and the public. Another implies that an independent board of governors must be established in order to divide national politics from day-to-day running of the NHS.

Focuses on the position of the British Medical Association (BMA) on the issue of abortion time limits in Great Britain. Motion debated by BMA; Developments in medicine on which supporters of the motion focused; Reason behind the option of women for abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The article discusses the strike of junior doctors from British Medical Association in England on January 12, 2016 against the New Deal contract by the British government that aim to reduce the working hours of junior doctors. Topics discussed include the collapsed of the industrial action in September 2016 and its causes, the view of the National Health Service (NHS) Trusts over the banding system, and the nature of junior doctor training and medical work.

If some form of assisted dying is to be legalised, we are likely to hear voices of discontent, not least from the medical profession and some of its members, who might be expected to provide the service. The profession generally favours a position of opposition, premised on an ethic of 'caring not killing', which might be said to convey its 'professional conscience'. There will, of course, also be individual conscientious objectors. In this article, we initially explore the nature and sources of conscience and we argue that conscience does merit respect. We also recognise that professionals, qua professionals, are bound to serve their patients, some of whom will want (and may be entitled to) that which their doctors do not wish to provide. Reflecting on the different values in issue, we suggest that there is a case for principled compromise which would afford professionals a limited right to conscientiously object, while also protecting patients. We then relate these reflections to assisted dying specifically. In the absence of any definitive steer from the purported integrity of medicine, we suspect that the profession could adopt a neutral stance on this divisive issue. We nevertheless anticipate individual objections if the law does move to embrace assisted dying, and we argue that such objections should be respected, according to the terms of the compromise model we defend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports medical developments in Great Britain as of August 1987. Campaign of British Medical Association against cigarette smoking; Issuance of consultation papers on performance indicators for the health service by the National Health Service Management Board; Announcement on the applications for scientists on cancer research awards.

Highlights the representative meeting of the British Medical Association (BMA) concerning medical services in Great Britain as of May 1989 in London, England. Criticisms on the white paper 'Working for Patients'; Support of the association for the public statements of BMA leaders; Need for collaboration between the government and medical professionals.

Comments on the controversies involving the National Health Services and the British Medical Association in Great Britain. Conflict between the two agencies regarding the paper 'Working for Patients'; Aims of the document; Effect of uncertainty regarding implementation of a new health system on doctors and other health professionals.

Reports the activities of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Great Britain. Effects of the National Health Service review on medical education; Absence of agreement on life assurance fees; Reactions of general practitioners on the practice budget policy in the white paper 'Working for Patients'.

The article focuses on the judicial dilemma regarding mercy killing in Great Britain. The public and the British Medical Association criticized the terms which defined mercy killing. In law, any unlawful act with intent to kill and causes death is murder. The Homicide Act 1957 introduced the concept of diminished responsibility. The Criminal Law Revision Committee suggests that mercy killing be defined as murder. These criticisms were carefully considered before a final recommendation.

The article focuses on a paper about the care of the feeble-minded which was published in the June 1892 issue of "British Medical Journal." The author notes that feeble-minded is a class of persons for whom at present scarcely any provision is made, but public opinion has of late been directed to the subject. He adds a special committee of the British Medical Association has taken the matter in hand and are occupied in making provision for thirty of these cases, who will be housed in a cottage and be occupied with laundry work. Meanwhile, he also states that Birmingham has carried out a plan for improving the feeble-minded adults who reside in the town.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Open Letter to the BMA About the Health White Paper," by C. Peedell and colleagues, published in the January 4, 2011 issue.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Open Letter to the BMA About the Health White Paper," by C. Peedell and colleagues, published in the January 4, 2011 issue.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Open Letter to the BMA About the Health White Paper," by C. Peedell and colleagues, published in the January 4, 2011 issue.

By the time the Health and Social Care Bill passed into law, becoming an Act, on 20th March 2012, it had garnered almost universal condemnation, with unprecedented agreement between the medical Royal Colleges, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives, and many others - not forgetting nearly 180,000 signatures on the 'Drop the Bill' Government e-petition (the second-most signed petition on the site). The Bill, from a government that had promised 'no top-down reorganisations of the NHS' at the last general election, represented a glaring democratic deficit. But how did such widespread opposition fall on deaf ears? Perhaps part of the failure of the opposition to the reforms was the difficulty in forming an adequate counter-argument to the huge variety of issues raised by the Health and Social Care Bill. In this article, we will outline the key policies of the reforms and some of their potential consequences as well as indicating how students and citizens may become more involved in the future direction of the NHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A national war formulary, published during the Second World War, was succeeded by hardback books called British National Formularies (BNFs), which were produced by the British Medical Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society about every 3 years until 1976. In 1981 a greatly revised and improved softback version was published and it has been revised and published twice a year since. It has acquired a reputation for being reliable, relevant and up to date. In 2005 the BNF for Children (BNFC) appeared and it has been revised and published every year since. Both BNFs have been used extensively in training prescribers and dispensers, they have supported increasing numbers of 'non-medical' prescribers and overseas use has grown. The current challenge is to provide the BNF data electronically, as three examples show. First, the contents of the BNF and BNFC are available digitally at BNF.org and BNFC.org, and via mobile devices, which require internet access, or as a download, which does not. Secondly, FormularyComplete is a system that enables hospitals, regions, or even countries to create their own formularies, by adding information on costs, local policies and drug availability to an intranet version of the BNF, a data source that cannot be modified. Thirdly, the BNF is working with others to provide the BNF data as computer-readable content, to support electronic prescribing and medicines management. Whatever systems are used, the information on drugs must be reliable and, ideally, all prescribers and dispensers in the UK should be guided by the same data source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethical guidance from the British Medical Association (BMA) about treating doctor-patients is compared and contrasted with evidence from a qualitative study of general practitioners (GPs) who have been patients. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 17 GPs who had experienced a significant illness. Their experiences were discussed and issues about both being and treating doctor-patients were revealed. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to evaluate the data. In this article data extracts are used to illustrate and discuss three key points that summarise the BMA ethical guidance, in order to develop a picture of how far experiences map onto guidance. The data illustrate and extend the complexities of the issues outlined by the BMA document. In particular, differences between experienced GPs and those who have recently completed their training are identified. This analysis will be useful for medical professionals both when they themselves are unwell and when they treat doctor-patients. It will also inform recommendations for professionals who educate medical students or trainees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on attempts by the British Medical Association (BMA) International Committee in Great Britain to help refugee physicians practice in the country. Shortage of doctors in National Health Service (NHS); Publication of a guide for refugee doctors; Difficulty in funding the requalification of doctors.

Theories of the professions do not sufficiently explain how individuals with different and often ill-defined interests can organize themselves into a group coherent enough to undertake a “professional project.” I suggest that concepts from institutional and organizational theory can help fill this gap and apply such concepts to one of the first professional projects, that of English doctors. In the early nineteenth century, two groups sought to become the organizational representative of the incipient profession. The first rapidly organized a sizeable fraction of practitioners and achieved some legislative success, but could not transform its early accomplishments into a position as the doctors' representative. The second had only moderate impact in its early years and was dismissed as politically irrelevant, but eventually united the profession and continues to this day as the British Medical Association. The professions literature, most of which is pitched at a broader level of analysis, does not provide theoretical tools to explain these divergent outcomes. I argue that they can be accounted for by analyzing English medicine as an institutional field. The groups' different structural locations within the field affected their trajectories, and a novel organizational model borrowed from an adjacent field helped the latter group keep doctors mobilized and achieve legitimacy. As a result, an unlikely–looking group of outsiders with limited resources was eventually able to lead a successful professional project, while an initially promising group fell by the wayside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During spring 1947, there was a controversy about the consequences for health of food rationing in Britain; among the issues at stake being the accusation that government departments were failing to release relevant data. The British Medical Association (BMA) responded by establishing a Nutrition Committee to investigate the effects of rationing. Leading members of the BMA expected the committee to intervene decisively in the debate, presenting the medical profession as protectors of the people. The committee, however, was dominated by officials and others who were concerned with presenting the government's record in a good light. Furthermore, by the time the committee reported, the food situation had improved. In the event, the BMA's Nutrition Report was deemed a success if it was received quietly by the press. The deliberations of the committee had involved the controlled release of government data to interested parties, and took place during a period of transition in the government's work in nutrition, from comprehensive emergency intervention toward routine peacetime surveillance. By providing a new set of standards that were used for measuring the adequacy of diets as revealed by the annual National Food Survey, the report contributed to the establishment of the postwar modus operandi of nutrition science and the peacetime system for monitoring the health of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The experiences of medical refugees who came to the United Kingdom from Nazi Germany and occupied Europe in the 1930s and 1940s reflect the general characteristics of the British response to the refugee crisis. This article analyzes the role of the British medical establishment and its interplay with the government and refugee aid organizations. Processes of decision making and changes of policy are revealed, drawing on the files of the "Aliens Committee" at the archive of the British Medical Association, on the private collection of Yvonne Kapp, former administrative head of the Medical Department of the Central Office for Refugees, and on the medical subseries of the archive of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning. "Divisions" refer to differing interests and attitudes of the institutions, organizations and individuals involved; "diversity" reflects the response to the various nationalities of medical refugees, mainly German, Austrian, Czech, and Polish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Features the candidates for the council election of British Medical Association in Great Britain. Issuance date of the ballot papers; Submission date of votes; Announcement of the result in the journal.

Focuses on the report on primary care by the Department of Health and Social Security in Great Britain. Contents of the primary care green paper; Need to improve services on patients; Importance of consultations between public ministers and the British Medical Association on medical policies concerning the National Health Service.

Presents news briefs on medical issues relating to the British Medical Association (BMA), and the National Health Service(NHS). Reference to the BMA council agreeing on the structure, relating to devolution; Welcoming of a public health green paper for England, by the BMA; Indication that the NHS's complaints, will be dealt with by the House of Commons public administration committee.