Martha's rule rolled out to all acute hospitals in England after hundreds of lives saved.
BBC News
Extracts
Martha's rule, a way for families to seek an urgent second opinion if they are concerned about the care their loved ones receive, will be rolled out across all English hospitals delivering acute or short-term treatment.
The telephone helpline, the result of a campaign by the parents of 13-year-old Martha Mills who died after serious failings in her care, has been piloted in 143 hospital sites in England since April 2024.
Figures from NHS England show that since then there have been almost 5,000 calls, resulting in 241 potentially life-saving interventions.
Martha's mother, Merope Mills, welcomed the expansion on what would have been her daughter's 18th birthday but wants UK-wide access.
MEA Comment
Martha’s Rule is an important new NHS patient safety initiative.
It is designed to recognise and act on any form of deterioration of a person who is in hospital by ensuring that the concerns of patients, families, carers and staff are all being listened to and acted upon.
It has been developed in response to the death of Martha Mills and other cases where there has been a a failure in management to respond to a deterioration in a patient's condition. Martha Mills died in 2021 after developing sepsis in hospital, where she had been admitted with a pancreatic injury after falling off her bike. Martha’s family’s concerns about her deteriorating condition were not responded to, and in 2023 a coroner ruled that Martha, aged 13, would probably have survived had she been moved to intensive care earlier.
Central to Martha’s Rule is the right for patients, families and carers to request a rapid review if they are worried that their or their loved one’s condition is getting worse and their concerns are not being responded to.
In relation to ME/CFS we know that some people with severe and very severe ME/CFS who are admitted to hospital do not receive the sort of care and management, especially in relation to nutritional support, that is recommended in the new NICE guideline on ME/CFS.
So this new initiative provides a way for patients and their families to obtain a rapid review of a situation where they believe that care and management is not satisfactory or possibly even harmful.
Dr Charles Shepherd,
Trustee and Hon. Medical Adviser to the ME Association,
Member of the 2018-2021 NICE guideline on ME/CFS committee,
Member of the 2002 Chief Medical Officer's Working Group on ME/CFS
Further Media Coverage
- Guardian: Martha’s rule now in operation at every acute hospital in England | Sep 4, 2025
- Sky News: Martha's rule rolled out to every acute hospital in England | Sep 4, 2025
- Independent: Martha’s rule must be rolled out to maternity care, urges mother of teenager who died of sepsis | Sep 4, 2025
- Daily Mail: How Martha's rule which lets patients concerned about their treatment receive rapid second opinion is already saving lives as thousands call helpline in first nine months | Sep 4, 2025
- Independent: Hundreds of patients have already used Martha’s Rule | Sep 4, 2025