‘We had such trust, we feel such fools’: how shocking hospital mistakes led to our daughter’s death

Martha in September 2017, age 10. Photograph: courtesy of Merope Mills. No images to be reproduced without permission

At the start of last summer, my 13-year-old daughter Martha was busy with life. She’d meet her friends in the park, make silly videos on her phone and play “kiss, marry, kill”. Her days were filled with books and memorising song lyrics. She’d wonder aloud if she might become an author, an engineer or a film director. Her future was brimming with promise, crowded with plans.

By the end of the summer she was dead, after shocking mistakes were made at one of the UK’s leading hospitals.