Martha's Rule rolled out at every A&E department in England

Starting late September 2026, patients and relatives entering any emergency department across England gain the immediate ability to call for an urgent care review. The practical effect is that individuals navigating urgent medical visits now hold an explicit, enforceable channel to question and reassess clinical care on the spot. This shift follows the nationwide expansion of Martha’s Rule, an initiative designed to provide patients and families with a formal right to a care review, moving the protocol firmly into frontline acute settings.

The BBC confirms that the framework applies comprehensively to every A&E department across England, ensuring the standard is not confined to limited pilot programs or designated regional hospitals. In parallel, reporting from The Times underscores that the measure formally embeds the right to a care review across the entire emergency care network. Published accounts uniformly document a system-wide instruction requiring all emergency care providers to adopt the policy simultaneously.

Coverage does not yet specify how hospital staff will carry out these reviews during peak hours, nor does it outline the exact administrative timeline workers must follow once a care review is formally initiated.