Inside the patient and family activated critical care hotline that’s a model for Martha’s rule

On every bedside locker at the Royal Berkshire Hospital is a sticker bearing a phone number for the Call 4 Concern service. This information, also on banners and posters around the corridors of the Reading hospital, urges patients or family members to call for help if they are worried about a patient’s changing condition. One call triggers an independent clinical review.

Call 4 Concern launched at the Royal Berkshire in 2009. The service is available around the clock seven days a week and is provided by the nurses on the critical care outreach (CCO) team. Other hospitals have since implemented this or similar approaches.

Soon, the notices, which advise relatives first to speak to a ward nurse or doctor before calling, could be a familiar sight in all hospitals in England: the service is prompting interest in the wake of the campaign for Martha’s rule.1 The parents of 13 year old Martha Mills watched her die in a London hospital after staff failed to listen to their concerns. They have called for action modelled on Call 4 Concern.2