Martha’s Rule

The NHS is introducing a new law ‘Martha’s rule’: a medical escalation arrangement to help minimise clinical negligence through misdiagnosis. It is planned that the beginning of the phased approach will take place in April 2024. 

But the story behind this new implemented rule is much darker. 

It all started when Martha Mills (from who the rule is named after) fell off her bike on a family holiday in Wales, summer of 2021. Which caused bad damage to her pancreas. She was then treated at King’s College Hospital, Camberwell, and (The Guardian states) her and her family were told that ‘even though the injury was serious, she could expect to make full recovery and be back to school within weeks.’ Martha’s Mother, Merope Mills, was told that Martha has just a ‘normal infection.’ But during her treatment she developed sepsis (a life-threatening reaction to an infection) and heartbreakingly died at the end of summer 2021, at the age of 13. Just a few days before her 14^th birthday. Martha’s parents, Merope Mills and her husband Paul Laity, raised concerns about Martha’s health a number of times but these were dismissed, and Martha was not moved to the intensive care unit. Investigations say that Martha would not have died if Doctor’s had listened to them. Wednesday 21^st February, following a campaign Merope and Paul did for their daughter. T-he NHS is implementing this rule.

The rule will give patients and their family the chance to have an urgent review from a critical care access team and if a patient’s condition is declining, they have the chance to see a different team. 

Quoted by Imperium Law:

At a Patient Safety Congress, the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt made the admission that 1 in 20 hospital deaths could have been avoided, he advised that as many as 12,500 patients are dying each year due to NHS blunders. 

What do you think of this law? Should they have taken action earlier? 

By Amna Yr7

Boston High School Newsroom