Martha’s Rule a ‘step forward’, says hospital chief nurse
The chief nurse of a Midlands hospital trust has welcomed the implementation of a system that allows patients or families to request an urgent review of care if they think deterioration is being missed by clinicians.
This system, Martha’s Rule, was named after 13-year-old Martha Mills, who died of sepsis following a series of missed opportunities by consultants and nurses to escalate her care when she was admitted to hospital with an injury sustained by falling off her bike on a family holiday.
“This is an important step forward for patient care and safety which will always be our priority.”
Phil Bolton
It empowers patients, and their families, to call for an urgent care review if they feel their condition is getting worse and that clinicians are not responding quickly enough.
Martha’s Rule can be triggered via a phone number, which will connect the individual to a dedicated critical care outreach team who will review the case.
King’s Mill Hospital, in Nottinghamshire, is one of 143 hospitals in England chosen to pilot the system, which the previous government promised to roll out across this year.
The aim is to have the system fully implemented in these 143 hospitals by March 2025.
Phil Bolton, chief nurse of King’s Mill’s parent organisation Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said he was “delighted” that Martha’s Rule was being introduced.
He said: “We want to be known as an outstanding local hospital that delivers quality services for our patients, delivering consistently outstanding care by compassionate people.
“This is an important step forward for patient care and safety which will always be our priority.”
As part of the new system, clinicians are also required to obtain information every day about a patient’s health from them personally and from their family.
The hope is that this helps prevent deterioration being missed.
Martha Mills
Sherwood Forest trust said the escalation process would hopefully “only be needed in a limit number of cases” and described it as a “safety net”.
In Martha Mills’ case, consultants repeatedly refused to listen to parents Merope Mills and Paul Laity when they thought their daughter may have developed sepsis.
Ms Mills has also previously said nurses, who were told about the concerns she and her husband had, did not do enough to persuade doctors to intervene.
She said, at the 2023 annual summit for England’s chief nursing officer, that nurses must be “forceful” and make themselves “unpopular” if they have to in order to implement Martha’s Rule.
