NICHOLAS TIMMINS
Back in 1974, one of my first press conferences as a health reporter was at the British Medical Association (BMA). Such events were then a rarity, although they were soon to become anything but. Shortly after, and for the first time in the history of the National Health Service, hospital consultants were workingto- rule (doing the minimum required by the rules of their contract) over Barbara Castle’s attempt to take private practice out of the NHS—while junior doctors, again for the first time, took industrial action over a new contract. Shades of today, hey?