\n<\/p>\n
More than 500 people have received potentially life-saving care thanks to Martha\u2019s rule, which gives hospital patients the right to seek a second opinion about their health.<\/p>\n
They were moved to intensive care or a specialist unit after they, a loved one or a member of NHS staff triggered the patient safety mechanism, which the NHS in England began using in 2024.<\/p>\n
Martha\u2019s rule lets patients, relatives and staff call a helpline run by the hospital if they are worried about the person\u2019s condition or treatment and ask for a \u201crapid review\u201d of their care.<\/p>\n
In the 18 months between September 2024 and February 2026, a total of 524 adults and children about whom concerns had been raised were moved to an intensive care or high-dependency unit, a specialist hospital or a specialist ward at the hospital where they were already an inpatient.<\/p>\n
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said the figures proved that Martha\u2019s rule is \u201calready having a life-saving impact\u201d. It has been widely hailed as a major advance in patient safety.<\/p>\n
Martha\u2019s rule is named after Martha Mills, who died aged 13 in 2021 after her family\u2019s concerns that she was deteriorating went unheeded by staff at King\u2019s College hospital in London.<\/p>\n
Her parents, Merope Mills and Paul Laity, campaigned to persuade ministers, NHS leaders and doctors to implement the right to a review of a hospital patient by a different team from the one treating them, which can lead to their care being escalated.<\/p>\n
After an inquest into her death a year later, the coroner ruled that Martha would probably have survived if doctors had spotted sooner that she was suffering from sepsis.<\/p>\n
NHS England\u2019s latest data on how Martha\u2019s rule is operating shows that 12,301 calls were made to Martha\u2019s rule helplines during those 18 months. About one in three \u2013 4,047 \u2013 helped to identify a patient whose health was getting worse. Three-quarters of them (2,967) were made either by a patient and their carer or by the patient themselves. Hospital staff made the other 1,080.<\/p>\n
Mills, a senior editor at the Guardian, and Laity said it was \u201chugely encouraging\u201d that 1,000 clinically trained staff had sought a review.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is also clear evidence that issues such as hierarchy, poor communication and some doctors\u2019 resistance to being challenged affect hospital care every day. Such factors are crucial to any explanation as to why Martha lost her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, consultants failed to move her to intensive care, even though at least one nurse identified that\u2019s where she needed to be: had Martha\u2019s rule been in place, the nurse could have called the number.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hospital\u2019s escalation protocol on the day of Martha\u2019s severe deterioration was tightly structured around the opinion of the ward consultant on duty, who was at home, didn\u2019t come into hospital, and got everything catastrophically wrong, as a professional tribunal has judged: all the ward doctors were bound by the hierarchy.<\/p>\n
\u201cMartha\u2019s rule would have given them more agency and might have encouraged them to take more responsibility,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n
An interim review into the operation of Martha\u2019s rule published on Friday found that 32% of the public were aware of the initiative, which hospitals promote using posters and other means. However, those who have been through higher education were four times more likely to have heard of it than others.<\/p>\n
Martha\u2019s parents want to help promote \u201ca public conversation about healthcare that explores culture and goes beyond the real problem of stretched resources\u201d.<\/p>\n
Paul Whiteing, chief executive of the patient safety charity, Action against Medical Accidents, said: \u201cToo often the people we support still tell us about the culture of defend and deny that they face when they ask questions or raise concerns about their treatment. If this rule is challenging that culture, then its use must be expanded as soon as is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Streeting said: \u201cMartha\u2019s parents have fought tirelessly to turn the most unimaginable grief into something that is genuinely changing how our NHS works. Merope and Paul pushed for a practical change that puts patients and families at the heart of care \u2013 and it\u2019s one that is already having a life-saving impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat takes extraordinary courage, and the NHS owes them an enormous debt of gratitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NHS is changing its culture and putting patient safety at its heart. Change isn\u2019t always easy, but Martha\u2019s rule is proof that it can be done,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 500 people have received potentially life-saving care thanks to Martha\u2019s rule, which gives hospital patients the right to seek a second opinion about their health. They were moved to intensive care or a specialist unit after they, a loved one or a member of NHS staff triggered the patient safety mechanism, which the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[311,3948,9315,1229,1156,1735],"class_list":{"0":"post-48959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-england","9":"tag-lives","10":"tag-marthas","11":"tag-nhs","12":"tag-rule","13":"tag-saved"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}