between them. However, several of the witnesses whom Hannam had questioned verbally refused to give sworn statements to confirm their allegations against Adams. During the trial, the assertions of Mrs Morrell's nurses that they did not know what Adams was injecting or that he did not give injections in front of them were disproved by the contents of their own note-books. Obstruction On 24 August, the British Medical Association (BMA) sent a letter to all doctors in Eastbourne reminding them of "Professional Secrecy" (i.e., patient confidentiality) if interviewed by the police. The police were frustrated by this move, although some local doctors ignored it and gave statements relating either to deceased patients or, in one instance, one that was alive. The action of the BMA was part of a concerted attempt by it to secure better terms for its members, whose pay had remained virtually static since the National Health Service had been set up in 1948: this action later led to talk of an all-out strike. The Attorney-General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller (who customarily prosecuted cases of poisoning or delegated them to the Solicitor General), wrote to the BMA secretary, Angus Macrae, "to try to get him to remove the ban". The impasse continued until on 8 November Manningham-Buller met Macrae to convince him of the importance of the case. During this meeting, in a highly unusual move, he passed Hannam's confidential 187-page report on Adams to Macrae. His intention was to convince the BMA of the seriousness of the accusations and for the need to obtain cooperation from local doctors. Macrae took the report to the President of the BMA and returned it the next day. Convinced of the seriousness of the accusations, Macrae dropped his opposition to doctors talking to the police. It has been speculated that Macrae also copied the report and passed it on to the defence, and conspiracy theorists have claimed that Manningham-Buller did so with the intention of assisting the defence case, but there is no evidence of this. However, the incident does call Manningham-Buller's competence into question, and he was strongly criticised at the time. On 28 November 1956, opposition Labour Party MPs Stephen Swingler and Hugh Delargy gave notice of two questions to be asked in the House of Commons regarding the affair, one asking what "reports [the Attorney-General] has sent" to the General Medical Council (GMC) in the "past six months".