Martha’s rule to be expanded to every A&E in England

Martha’s rule, which lets NHS patients, staff and relatives request a review of their care, is being expanded to every A&E in England, health officials have announced.

The system gives patients, their loved ones and health workers the right to ask for a different medical team to examine the care being provided on inpatient wards and to recommend changes. It has already potentially saved hundreds of lives, official figures show.

Now it will be rolled out to every emergency department in England, including waiting rooms, offering “a critical new lifeline” to improve care and save more lives, NHS England said.

The system is named after Martha Mills, 13, who died in 2021 from sepsis after a bicycle accident. A coroner found she would probably have survived if she had been moved to the intensive care unit at King’s College hospital in London when she began deteriorating.

In the first 16 months of the scheme after its introduction in England in 2024, helplines received more than 10,000 calls, potentially saving 446 lives, figures show. Thousands of patients were either moved to intensive care, received drugs they needed or benefited from other changes as a direct result of the calls.

In June this year, the initiative was expanded to every maternity and neonatal unit in England, giving women and parents the right to a second opinion about the care of a mother or baby.

From this month, it will be expanded to A&E units. It means patients, loved ones and staff in busy emergency departments will be able to call a dedicated phone number to trigger an urgent review if a patient’s condition is deteriorating and they think their concerns are not being listened to.

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Source: The Guardian, 22 September 2026