Andrew Lansley: I won't cave in on NHS reform He also claimed the "fight" over the NHS "isn't - at it's core - a debate about principles." However, the speech, which comes after the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of GPs and the BMA announced outright opposition to the Health and Social Care Bill, made no mention of concerns over privatisation. Responding, Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA Council, said Mr Lansley should "refrain from making inflammatory remarks and instead listen to the warnings." He added: "It is a shame that the Health Secretary has decided to repeat a seventy year old myth. The BMA called for a national medical service decades before the government established the NHS in 1948. "Doctors" opposition to parts of what was proposed at the time was related to the detail of the then government's initial plans for how the system would operate, not to the principle of a publicly funded and comprehensive service that was free at the point of use for all patients."