The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union[1][2][3] and professional body[4][5] for doctors in the United Kingdom.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Members of the BMA have access to employment advice, covering subjects including contract checking, job planning, pay disputes and relationship issues.

The Board of Professional Activities reports to Council and considers ethical, scientific, research, and educational matters whilst The Board of Representative and Political Activities considers reports from the following committees which represent doctors across the seven branches of practice, namely: Branch of Practice committees have a majority of BMA members but may also include non-members.

[18] A large part of the AFC's work is the production of evidence to the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB).

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.

[22] The committee was started with a budget of £100[23] and the committee was chaired by Dr. A. D. Waller,[24] and consisted of Dr. Barr, Dr. Dudley Buxton, Sir Victor Horsley, Dr. Sherrington and Dr Walker (and later A. Vernon Hardcourt and Professor Dunstan) "to investigate methods of quantitatively determining the presence of chloroform in the air and the living body".

[23] In their final report, the committee stated that chloroform doses above 2% were unsafe as cardiac arrest occurred under inhibition of the vagus nerve.

[28] The building, Grade II listed since 1982,[29] was originally designed for the Theosophical Society by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with work commencing in September 1911.

After the war the Theosophical Society could not afford to finish the building, and it was sold to the BMA for £50,000, with the association later purchasing the freehold of the site from the Bedford Estates in 1962.

The association later commissioned Douglas Wood to design further extensions on either side of Wontner Smith's front entrance (built 1938–1949), to the south (1947–1950) and at the back of the building (1959–1960).