Overview
- On June 11, 2025, a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service panel found Professor Richard Thompson guilty of “particularly grave” misconduct but decided no disciplinary penalty was necessary.
- The tribunal concluded Thompson failed to refer Martha Mills to intensive care and did not conduct an in-person review despite her high-risk sepsis indicators.
- Exceptional circumstances cited included systemic ward failings in paediatric intensive care referrals and no evidence that Thompson’s actions directly caused Mills’s death.
- Martha’s Rule, enacted in 2024 after the teenager’s death, has been invoked over 2,000 times and led to more than 100 patients being escalated to intensive care.
- A coroner’s 2022 inquest ruled that earlier ICU transfer could have saved Martha and Thompson has since completed sepsis management training while expressing deep remorse.