Merope Mills

Campaign of the Year

In 2021 Merope’s 13-year-old daughter, Martha, tragically died of sepsis whilst in hospital being treated for an inhury to her pancreas after falling from her bike on a family holiday. In spite of Merope and her husband Paul raising concerns about Martha’s deteriorating condition a number of times, their increasingly anxious pleas were ignored. A coroner later ruled that Martha would probably have survived if doctors had identified the warning signs and transferred her to intensive care. Since then, Merope has been campaigning to formalise the process of asking for a second opinion from a different team (usually critical care or ICU) when a patient, family member or carer, is anxious that deterioration isn’t getting an adequate response.

In September 2023, the health secretary announced the government was committed to introducing ‘Martha’s Rule’ in England.

Merope Mills said “I feel honoured to receive the award for Campaign of the Year. In telling Martha’s story, I wanted to highlight preventable deaths in our healthcare system and am pleased to have won government and NHS support for Martha’s Rule. Martha’s Rule is essential in empowering patients to speak up on hospital wards. Ultimately it will enable patients themselves to trigger a critical care review – effectively a second opinion – if they feel their care is going wrong, their concerns are being ignored or their voice isn’t being heard. I’d like to dedicate this award to my wonderful daughter. Martha was bright, brave and brilliant in every way. She is deeply loved and deeply missed.”