New NHS England data shows that, between September 2024 and December 2025, 3,457 of the 10,119 escalation calls helped identify acute deterioration, which led to 1,885 patients receiving changes in treatment, including 446 potentially life-saving interventions to transfer them to enhanced levels of care.

More than 6,000 calls addressed clinical, communication, or co-ordination concerns, leading to meaningful improvements in care or system navigation for patients and their families.

Calls via Martha's Rule helplines have more than doubled since June last year (4,911) as the roll out has been ramped up, with all adult and paediatric acute inpatient sites in the NHS now in the process of implementing the programme.

Dr Aidan Fowler, national director of patient safety at NHS England, said: ‘Martha's Rule is already helping to save lives and transform the culture of the NHS – with 10,000 calls made to the helplines in just over a year and over four hundred potentially life-saving interventions triggered.'

In February 2024, NHS England began implementing Martha's Rule following the campaigning of parents, Merope and Paul, whose daughter, Martha Mills, died in 2021 aged 13 after developing sepsis in hospital where she had been admitted with a pancreatic injury after falling off her bike.

The major patient safety initiative in hospitals requires staff to use a structured approach to obtaining information about a patient's condition from patients and their families at least daily and encourages patients, families and carers to speak to the care team if they notice changes in someone's condition.

It also provides them with a way to seek an urgent review if their or their loved one's condition deteriorates – and are concerned this is not being responded to.

Staff can themselves ask for a review from a different team if they are concerned the appropriate action is not being taken.