The parents of Martha Mills, who died from sepsis after failures at King's College Hospital in London, have joined with the thinktank Demos to demand a new policy giving patients the right to an urgent second opinion if they feel their concerns are being dismissed.
Martha, who would have turned 16 on Monday, died aged 13 in 2021 after developing sepsis following a minor cycling accident. A coroner ruled in 2022 that she would have survived if doctors had recognised the warning signs and transferred her to intensive care sooner.
Her parents, Merope Mills and Alastair Mills, said their worries about Martha's deteriorating condition were not taken seriously, with doctors offering reassurance even as nursing staff privately acknowledged the risk of death. Merope Mills, a senior editor at the Guardian, said: 'Even if you were to give the doctors the benefit of the doubt, the result is that they did not give us any agency in demanding the correct treatment.'
The proposed 'Martha's rule' would formalise the process for requesting a second opinion from a different clinical team. The Demos report suggests it could be based on existing schemes such as the 'Call 4 Concern' system used in some UK hospitals and Australia's 'Ryan's Rule', which allows parents to alert doctors to a patient's worsening condition.
An NHS spokesperson said that patients and families already have the right to seek a second opinion, and professional guidance requires that such wishes be respected. However, the report argues that a more structured and accessible system is needed to prevent future tragedies.
