Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is one of 143 hospitals nationally that will test and roll out Martha’s Rule in its first year.
The new rule will provide a consistent and easy to understand way for patients and families to seek an urgent review if clinical condition deteriorates, and they would like to request a second opinion.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals already has a 24/7 Critical Care Outreach Team which enables staff to escalate concerns about a patient’s condition. Martha’s Rule will extend this further to making specialist teams available to patients and families for the first time – so they can escalate care concerns if they feel there has been a change.
The service will initially be operational in certain trial areas, before being rolled out to all patients later this year and once established routes have been formed.
As part of the initiative, clinicians will also formally record daily insights and information about a patient’s health directly from them, or their families, ensuring any concerning changes in behaviour or condition noticed by the people who know the patient best are considered by staff caring for them.
The first phase of the NHS programme will see the rule rolled out to143 hospitals across the country by March 2025.
What is Martha’s Rule?
The scheme is named after Martha Mills, a young girl aged 13 who died from sepsis in 2021. Despite her family’s concerns about her deteriorating condition, the hospital sadly did not escalate her to intensive care. and this new law is part of the lessons learned from this tragic story.
Extensive campaigning by Martha’s parents, Merope and Paul, supported by the cross-party think tank Demos, saw widespread support for a single system that allows patients or their families to trigger an urgent clinical review from a different team in the hospital if the patient’s condition is rapidly worsening and they feel they are not getting the care they need.
This will be in place in all our hospitals and further information will be shared about how to take the next steps.