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Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong>Read more<\/p>\n Martha\u2019s rule<\/a>, an NHS safety initiative which allows families and patients to seek a rapid second opinion on their hospital care, should also be rolled out across maternity care in the UK, the founder of the scheme has said.<\/p>\n Merope Mills said the availability of Martha\u2019s rule in maternity care<\/a> would give women and their partners concerned about the care they were receiving a \u201cgreater voice\u201d. <\/p>\n Ms Mills and her husband launched the campaign for the initiative after their daughter Martha died at King\u2019s College Hospital<\/a> in Camberwell aged 13 in 2021 after developing sepsis. Their concerns about Martha\u2019s deteriorating condition were brushed aside.<\/p>\n A coroner later concluded that Martha would most likely have survived had doctors identified the warning signs<\/a> of septic shock and transferred her to intensive care sooner.<\/p>\n Martha\u2019s rule is now operational in all English hospitals delivering acute or short-term treatment and has already seen hundreds of patients benefit from potentially life-saving changes to their treatment.<\/p>\n Speaking on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme, Ms Mills said she was calling for the extension of the initiative into the rest of the UK, and also into maternal care.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cWe spend more on settling medical negligence maternity cases \u2013 maternity lawsuits \u2013 than on maternity care in this country and there\u2019s something very, very wrong with that. <\/p>\n \u201cI believe it\u2019s because there are a number of cases where women\u2019s voices aren\u2019t listened to.\u201d <\/p>\n She added: \u201cI would love to see Martha\u2019s rule extended to give women or their families or partners a greater voice.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Aidan Fowler, national director of patient safety in England, deputy chief medical officer at the Department of Health and Social Care, said the government was already exploring options for making Martha\u2019s rule available in maternal care settings. <\/p>\n \u201cWe do back that and we\u2019re already looking at that,\u201d he told the BBC. \u201cWe will be piloting it in maternity. It\u2019s a more complex area \u2013 not only can people giving birth deteriorate physically, but we have their babies that might deteriorate \u2013 but also they may be concerned about the progress of their labour, and that\u2019s a skill set which, for example ITU, may not be familiar with, so we\u2019ve got to make sure the right people respond to three types of deterioration in that circumstance. But we\u2019re already looking at that.\u201d<\/p>\n The calls for Martha\u2019s rule to be introduced to the UK\u2019s maternity care system come weeks after a national investigation into \u201csystemic\u201d failures in NHS<\/a> maternity care was launched by the government<\/a>.<\/p>\n Families who lost babies were \u201cgaslit\u201d in their search for the truth, the health secretary<\/a> Wes Streeting said in June<\/a>, adding that \u201cmaternity units are failing, hospitals are failing, trusts are failing, regulators are failing\u201d and there was \u201ctoo much passing the buck\u201d.<\/p>\n In 2020, an expos\u00e9 by The Independent<\/a> found evidence of repeated poor care, spanning a decade, at Nottingham University Hospital, with families accusing staff of a cover-up.<\/p>\n