More than 10,000 calls have been made to Martha’s Rule helplines in the first 16 months of the NHS scheme (September 2024 – December 2025), saving lives and helping thousands of patients benefit from changes to their care.
New NHS England data shows that one in three calls (34%, 3,457) to Martha’s Rule by patients, families and staff identified rapid worsening of a patient’s condition, helping the NHS to identify concerns more quickly and make crucial interventions to care. As a result, 1,885 patients received changes in treatment, including 446 potentially life-saving interventions to transfer them to enhanced levels of care.
More than 6,000 calls have addressed clinical, communication, or coordination concerns, leading to meaningful improvements in care or system navigation for patients and their families.
Major patient safety initiative
Calls via Martha’s Rule helplines have more than doubled since June last year as the roll out has been ramped up, with all adult and paediatric acute inpatient sites in the NHS now in the process of implementing Martha’s Rule.
Hospitals have rolled out communications campaigns, including dedicated posters around their wards and buildings, to help raise awareness of Martha’s Rule and ensure the programme is easy-to-understand and that its use is normalised for patients, families and staff.
Martha’s Rule requires staff to use a structured approach to obtaining information about a patient’s condition from patients and their families at least daily and encourages patients, families and carers to speak to the care team if they notice changes in someone’s condition.
It also provides them with a way to seek an urgent review if their or their loved one’s condition deteriorates, and they are concerned this is not being responded to.
Staff can themselves ask for a review from a different team if they are concerned the appropriate action is not being taken.
Martha Mills died in 2021 aged 13 after developing sepsis in hospital, where she had been admitted with a pancreatic injury after falling off her bike.
Martha’s family’s concerns about her deteriorating condition were not responded to, and in 2022 a coroner ruled that Martha would probably have survived had she been moved to intensive care earlier.
NHS England began the implementation of Martha’s Rule in February 2024, following campaigning by Martha’s parents, Merope and Paul, and its roll-out across 143 pilot sites was announced in May 2024.
Merope Mills says: “The more data that is gathered, the clearer it becomes that Martha’s Rule is having a hugely positive effect. Apart from the lives saved, over a third of the calls have led to a marked improvement in care.
“The process is not being overused and has obviously met a need, giving patients and families real agency. We look forward to its thorough implementation in maternity departments and call for its rapid introduction in Wales and Scotland.”
