Martha’s rule: Mother to press health secretary on patient rightson September 12, 2023 at 4:50 am

The mother of Martha Mills, whose preventable death in hospital has led to calls for extra patients’ rights, has said she is to meet the health secretary to discuss “Martha’s Rule”.

If introduced, it would give families a statutory right to get a second opinion if they have concerns about care.

Merope Mills said patients needed more clarity and to feel empowered.

Her daughter, Martha, died two years ago after failures in treating her sepsis at King’s College Hospital.

She had entered hospital with an injury to her pancreas after falling off her bike. The injury was serious but should never have been fatal. Within days she had died of sepsis.

In an interview to be broadcast on Radio 4’s Today programme shortly, Mrs Mills said she had raised concerns but doctors told her the extensive bleeding was “a normal side-effect of the infection, that her clotting abilities were slightly off”.

The King’s College Hospital Trust said it remained “deeply sorry that we failed Martha when she needed us most” and her parents should have been listened to.

An inquest said she could have survived had her care been better.

Mrs Mills said: “What I’m asking is for doctors to trust us [patients and relatives], like we have trusted them for so many years.”

She wants hospitals around the country to bring in “Martha’s rule” which would give parents, carers and patients the right to call for an urgent second clinical opinion from other experts at the same hospital if they have concerns about their current care.

On Monday, NHS England medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis said change was needed, but he argued different hospitals might need different approaches.

“Patient and relative voice is paramount,” the medical director said.

“Over the last six months or so we at NHS England have been working with a number of hospital across England to work out what sort of methodologies, what sort of processes, will ensure that that voice is heard when it needs to be heard,” Prof Powis explained.

In response to his remarks, Mrs Mills said she was “delighted that they’ve confirmed they will mandate change across the NHS”.

But she was concerned about the implementation of different methodologies and approaches, as Mrs Mills told the BBC “clarity is much better than complexity” for patients.

“When someone is dying in front of your eyes… you don’t want to be filling out a questionnaire about whether you’re being listened to,” Mrs Mills added.

Merope Mills first shared her ordeal leading up to her daughter’s tragic death with the BBC’s Today programme last week.

Since then, she said she had felt there was “political will behind the idea” of Martha’s rule and it was fostering cross-party support.

She described the response from the public as “much bigger… [than] my husband and I anticipated” and said she has heard from many other families “who feel their voices weren’t heard in hospital, and who have also lost someone as a result”.

Stephen Barclay, the health secretary, has agreed to meet her on Wednesday after she reached out to him, she said.

Last week, he said he would explore the plea of bereaved parents who want to see Martha’s rule in place and had asked his department to look at whether it could improve patient safety and prevent more deaths like Martha’s .

Mrs Mills said she would also meet Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting.

He pledged in a BBC interview last week to examine a “Monday-to-Friday culture” in the NHS following Martha’s preventable death during a bank holiday weekend.