When the Health Service began in 1948 the BMA boycotted it, they didn’t want to be turned into salaried government employees. Bevan bought them off with promises that they would be allowed to keep their private practices on the side, and also there was a financial incentive for every patient the doctor signed up for his ‘panel’. Everyone had to register with a doctor who would accept NHS patients in order to get the free treatment and once some doctors started to sign up to it the others surrendered, seeing the prospect that they would have no one left on their panel.
After ten years the BMA was as doughty a fighter for the Health Service as any other lobby.