The mother of a 13-year-old girl who died of sepsis has said she hopes Martha’s rule, which gives patients and their families the right to a second medical opinion, will “upend” the “hierarchy” on hospital wards. Merope Mills, who campaigned with her husband, Paul Laity, to give families more say regarding care following the death of their daughter Martha, also called for a “mutual respect” between patients and doctors. More than 140 NHS sites in England have agreed to implement Martha’s rule , a patient safety initiative that will give patients and their families round-the-clock access to a rapid review by an independent critical care team from elsewhere in the hospital if they feel their health, or that of a family member, is deteriorating and they are not being listened to.
Martha died of sepsis in 2021 after receiving a pancreatic injury when she fell off her bike. Mills and Laity raised concerns about their daughter’s health a number of times but these were brushed aside. ‘We had such trust, we feel such fools’: how shocking hospital mistakes led to our daughter’s death Read more A coroner ruled the teenager would most likely have survived if doctors had identified the warning signs of her rapidly deteriorating condition and transferred her to intensive care earlier.
Speaking at NHS ConfedExpo on Wednesday, Mills, an executive editor at the Guardian, said: “My big thing is, I think we need to be more equal. “It’s a very unequal place, a hosp.
