Martha’s rule: What could the proposed changes mean for doctors?

Pressure is building for a formal system to allow patients or families the right to demand an urgent second opinion if a patient seems to be deteriorating, amid a campaign by the parents of a 13 year old girl who died from sepsis after their concerns were ignored. On 4 September England’s health and social care secretary, Steve Barclay, announced that the government was considering introducing “Martha’s rule,” requiring NHS hospitals to give quick access to a second clinical opinion in urgent cases.1Martha Mills, daughter of Merope Mills and Paul Laity, died in 2021 a few days short of her 14th birthday, just after an August bank holiday weekend. She had been on a paediatric ward at King’s College Hospital in London, one of three national centres for the care of children with pancreatic trauma, after injuring her pancreas in a bicycle accident. She was showing signs of sepsis, and…
Read Original Article: Martha’s rule: What could the proposed changes mean for doctors? »