30th January 2026

Legal review of IHRA for NHS
A judicial review has been launched against the NHS for adopting the antisemitism definition International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Critics say the IHRA definition blurs the line between legitimate criticism of Israel as a state and antisemitism.

Spire to private equity?
The UK’s biggest private hospital provider, Spire Healthcare, is in talks about a sale to private equity. Its leading investor Harwood Capital Management is pressing for a sale. NHS work makes up about 30% of Spire’s revenue and has provided a steady income stream. Private equity milks local authorities funding with immoral disregard.

How many long stay patients?
According to NHS England figures, during November hospitals began each day with an average of more than one in five (over 20,000) front line General and Acute (G&A) beds filled with patients who had had ‘no criteria to remain’ in an acute bed, and should have been discharged. Meanwhile there are patients collapsing in A&E corridors.

The love that is the NHS
Read Anne Perkins’s paean to our NHS, it will do your heart good. Equally from a speech by NHS campaigner Sally Ruane “The NHS has always been a profoundly moral institution because it has always embodied a view of how human affairs should be ordered. It was founded on the principle of equity or fairness: that we should all contribute to its funding on the basis of our ability to pay; that we should all have access to its services on the basis of need alone.”

Are waiting lists growing or declining?
It’s a mixed picture. Read health campaigner John Lister’s balanced account. “At this rate it could take 86 years to clear the waiting list.”