Merope Mills and Paul Laity, the parents of Martha Mills who died in August 2021, aged 13, at King’s College hospital in London, have spent the past two years struggling to come to terms not only with the loss of a beloved child, but with the knowledge that her death could probably have been prevented. Martha would have had a much higher chance of survival if doctors had moved her off the Ray of Sunshine ward, where an injury to her pancreas was being treated after she fell from a bicycle, and into paediatric intensive care where a bed was available. That this didn’t happen is something they will always have to live with.
Ms Mills, a senior Guardian editor, and Mr Laity, are now lobbying for Martha’s Rule, a legislative reform that would create an entitlement to a second opinion in situations where relatives are concerned that a patient in hospital is not getting better. Like other campaigners bereaved in situations where institutions are at fault, Martha’s parents want something good to come out of their tragedy. The kernel of their proposal is to boost patient power, by obliging the NHS to set up and promote a mechanism whereby families can seek expertise from elsewhere in a hospital, such as a critical care team, if they are worried that treatment is not going well.
