💜 FAYE'S LAW — HISTORY MATTERS💜 

SEE THE HISTORY. CONNECT THE PATTERN. QUESTION THE LABEL. PROTECT THE PATIENT.

My name is Michelle, and I am campaigning in memory of my daughter, Faye Rebecca Cunningham, who died aged just 27 following a catastrophic aneurysmal brain haemorrhage.

Faye's Law is based on one simple principle:

A PATIENT IS MORE THAN TODAY'S APPOINTMENT.
Their history matters.

Their previous symptoms matter.

Their abnormal results matter.

Their vulnerability matters.

And when those pieces begin forming a pattern, somebody needs to see the whole picture.

Healthcare professionals are working under enormous pressure.

Faye's Law is not about expecting a GP, nurse or A&E clinician to manually search through hundreds of pages of medical records during a short appointment.

It is about giving patients and healthcare professionals a system that helps them.

LET TECHNOLOGY FIND THE HISTORY.
LET CLINICIANS INTERPRET IT.
LET PATIENTS SEE THEIR OWN STORY.
 
🌟 THE LANDSCAPE IS CHANGING — AND WE WELCOME IT
Since this campaign began, important patient-safety developments have continued.

Jess's Rule encourages primary-care teams to rethink when somebody repeatedly presents with the same or escalating symptoms or concerns.

Martha's Rule gives patients, families and carers an escalation route when they believe a hospital patient is deteriorating and their concerns are not being addressed.

The NHS Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag is helping disability-related needs and reasonable adjustments become visible across services.

And now something extremely important is happening.

THE GOVERNMENT IS LEGISLATING FOR A SINGLE PATIENT RECORD.
The Health Bill 2026 proposes a Single Patient Record to bring together health and care information that is currently fragmented across different systems.

Government itself has recognised that fragmented records can create patient-safety risks, missed opportunities for earlier diagnosis and unnecessary repetition of a patient's story.

WE WHOLEHEARTEDLY WELCOME THIS DIRECTION.
Faye's Law does not seek to duplicate these reforms.

It asks Government and the NHS to go one crucial step further:

DON'T JUST CONNECT THE RECORDS.
CONNECT THE PATTERN.
Build the History Matters patient-safety principles into the Single Patient Record while it is being developed.

 
💜 1. HISTORY MATTERS — SEE THE LONGITUDINAL STORY
When somebody repeatedly presents with chronic, unexplained, recurring or worsening health problems, their relevant longitudinal medical history should be readily available and considered before significant diagnosis, treatment or discharge decisions are made, wherever reasonably practicable.

That history may include:

• previous symptoms and presentations
• diagnoses and disputed or uncertain diagnoses
• blood results and trends
• blood-pressure and other observations
• imaging
• medication and adverse reactions
• referrals and investigations
• emergency and ambulance attendances
• cognitive or communication difficulties
• reasonable adjustments and safeguarding information
• significant childhood history
• and unfinished clinical pathways.

HISTORY SHOULD NOT RESTART BECAUSE THE PATIENT CHANGES DOCTOR, GP PRACTICE, HOSPITAL, SPECIALTY OR NHS TRUST.
Healthcare professionals already have important responsibilities around assessment, history, continuity and information sharing.

Faye's Law asks for technology that makes fulfilling those responsibilities easier, safer and more reliable.

 
📈 2. PATTERN MATTERS — PERSISTENT ABNORMALITY MUST TRIGGER A SAFETY NET
Displaying blood-test trends is progress.

But:

SEEING A PATTERN IS NOT THE SAME AS SAFETY-NETTING THE PATTERN.
Faye's Law proposes a Persistent Abnormality Review Trigger.

Where a clinically significant abnormality remains unexplained across repeated results or observations, the electronic record should trigger a documented longitudinal clinical review.

As a proposed minimum safety net, four repeated unexplained abnormalities should automatically trigger that review — while potentially serious abnormalities must of course be acted upon sooner where clinically indicated.

The review should consider:

• the longitudinal trend
• symptoms
• relevant previous history
• whether repeat or extended testing is appropriate
• whether investigation or specialist advice is required
• whether monitoring is appropriate
• and the clinical rationale where no further action is considered necessary.

FOUR ABNORMAL RESULTS WOULD NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN MORE TESTS.
IT WOULD MEAN SOMEBODY MUST CONSCIOUSLY REVIEW THE PATTERN.
Where an abnormality has an established, stable and clinically understood explanation, unnecessary investigation should not be required.

But:

“NORMAL FOR THIS PATIENT” MUST NEVER, BY ITSELF, BE THE EXPLANATION FOR AN UNEXPLAINED ABNORMALITY.
This principle should extend beyond blood tests.

Patterns can involve:

blood pressure • pulse • oxygen saturation • weight change • imaging • neurological symptoms • seizures • collapses • repeated pain • and other clinically significant observations.

 
🏷️ 3. QUESTION THE LABEL — NO MORE LABELS WITHOUT REASSESSMENT
This is central to Faye's Law.

Anxiety.

Alcohol.

Smoking.

Weight.

Lifestyle.

Behaviour.

Non-compliance.

White-coat hypertension.

Mental-health diagnoses.

Any of these may sometimes be genuinely clinically relevant.

But:

A LABEL MUST NEVER BECOME A SUBSTITUTE FOR APPROPRIATE CLINICAL ASSESSMENT.
Faye's Law proposes a Diagnostic Label Review Trigger.

Where an existing label is materially influencing treatment, investigation or discharge but repeated objective abnormalities, new evidence or deterioration no longer fit comfortably with that explanation, clinicians should be prompted to reconsider it.

Records should distinguish, wherever reasonably possible, between:

OBJECTIVE FINDING — measured or observed evidence.

CONFIRMED DIAGNOSIS — a diagnosis clinically established.

CLINICAL IMPRESSION / DIFFERENTIAL — something being considered.

PATIENT OR FAMILY REPORTED HISTORY — relevant information reported to healthcare professionals.

UNVERIFIED HISTORICAL LABEL — a previous entry whose original evidential basis cannot readily be established.

This does not mean deleting legitimate diagnoses.

It means:

THE LABEL MUST NEVER BECOME MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PATIENT IN FRONT OF YOU.
LIFESTYLE CHOICES SHOULD INFORM HEALTHCARE — NOT REPLACE HEALTHCARE.
 
🔄 4. BUILD ON JESS'S RULE — A PATTERN DOES NOT ALWAYS REPEAT THE SAME SYMPTOM
We welcome the principle behind Jess's Rule:

WHEN SOMETHING KEEPS HAPPENING, RETHINK.
But serious illness or deterioration may not present with exactly the same symptom every time.

One attendance may involve a headache.

Another abnormal blood pressure.

Another altered sensation.

Another abnormal blood result.

Another memory problem.

Another collapse.

Another ambulance.

Another hospital.

DIFFERENT WARNING SIGNS CAN STILL FORM AN IMPORTANT PATTERN.
Faye's Law asks healthcare technology to help clinicians see those accumulating pieces rather than expecting an unwell patient to reconstruct their entire medical history themselves.

 
🚨 5. BUILD ON MARTHA'S RULE — CAN WE RECOGNISE THE PATTERN BEFORE CATASTROPHIC CRISIS?
We welcome Martha's Rule and its principle that patients and families who believe somebody is deteriorating should be heard and have access to escalation.

Faye's Law asks an additional question:

CAN THE SYSTEM RECOGNISE THE WARNING PATTERN EARLIER?
Repeated emergency presentations.

Significant observations.

Unresolved symptoms.

Outstanding investigations.

Increasing vulnerability.

Family concerns.

These should be capable of contributing to a visible longitudinal safety signal where clinically appropriate.

Martha's Rule helps when somebody is deteriorating now.

History Matters asks whether their record shows that something has been going wrong for months or years.

 
🧠 6. PROTECT THE VULNERABLE PATIENT
Some people cannot navigate healthcare in the same way as everybody else.

They may struggle because of:

• memory impairment
• cognitive difficulties
• learning disability
• communication difficulties
• brain injury
• neurological illness
• mobility problems
• serious mental illness
• or another disability affecting their ability to manage healthcare.

A record saying “appointment sent” does not necessarily mean a cognitively impaired person can remember that appointment.

A telephone call does not necessarily mean they can retain what they were told.

A diary cannot provide a complete safety net for somebody who forgets to look at the diary.

THE SAFETY SYSTEM MUST FIT THE PATIENT — NOT EXPECT EVERY PATIENT TO FIT THE SYSTEM.
We welcome the NHS Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag.

Faye's Law asks for that progress to connect directly with clinical safety-netting.

Depending upon individual need and the lawful basis for doing so, adjustments could include:

• alternative contact methods
• appointment reminders
• accessible information
• longer appointments
• face-to-face assessment where clinically appropriate
• supporter or advocate involvement
• assistance attending appointments
• confirmation that important instructions have been understood
• and additional follow-up where a clinically important investigation or referral is missed.

DIFFICULTY NAVIGATING HEALTHCARE MUST NOT AUTOMATICALLY BE INTERPRETED AS REFUSAL TO ENGAGE WITH HEALTHCARE.
 
🛡️ 7. CLOSE THE GAP BETWEEN SAFEGUARDING AND CLINICAL VULNERABILITY
Formal safeguarding protections already exist.

But there can be people who do not meet the threshold for a formal safeguarding intervention while their cognition, disability, communication or functional difficulties mean they cannot safely navigate complicated healthcare without additional support.

Faye's Law asks for a bridge between:

FORMAL SAFEGUARDING
and

CLINICAL VULNERABILITY + REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS.
NOBODY SHOULD APPEAR INDEPENDENT ON PAPER WHILE BEING UNABLE TO NAVIGATE THEIR HEALTHCARE SAFELY IN PRACTICE.
 
👨‍👩‍👧 8. LISTEN TO FAMILY, CARERS AND ADVOCATES
Families and carers do not replace healthcare professionals.

But they can hold information that today's clinical assessment cannot.

Where consent, capacity and the law permit, relevant information from somebody who knows the patient well should be appropriately recorded and considered.

They may be saying:

“This isn't normal for her.”

“Her memory has deteriorated.”

“She cannot manage this herself anymore.”

“Something has changed.”

“She is getting worse.”

FAMILIES SHOULD NOT DIAGNOSE THE PATIENT.
BUT THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SHOUT TO BE HEARD.
 
🔗 9. SOMEONE MUST OWN THE NEXT STEP
Healthcare necessarily involves referrals between professionals and services.

That is appropriate care.

But:

REFERRAL MUST NOT MEAN RESPONSIBILITY DISAPPEARS.
For significant clinical pathways, the record should make clear:

• what was requested
• why
• who currently holds responsibility
• whether the referral was accepted
• whether the patient attended
• what was found
• what happened next
• whether anything remains outstanding
• and who owns the next step.

Where practical, clinically important referrals should have a closed-loop handover.

A REFERRAL SENT IS NOT THE SAME AS A PROBLEM SOLVED.
The patient should not become the only person responsible for connecting GP, hospital, ambulance, specialist and community services.

 
✅ 10. EVERY SIGNIFICANT INVESTIGATION NEEDS AN END POINT
A blood test being ordered is not the end.

A scan being requested is not the end.

A referral being sent is not the end.

THE END IS WHEN THE RESULT HAS BEEN REVIEWED AND AN APPROPRIATE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
For clinically important pathways, the record should clearly show:

REQUESTED → COMPLETED → RESULT → REVIEWED → ACTION / MONITORING / CLINICALLY CLOSED
Where a pathway does not complete, the reason should remain visible.

Where vulnerability contributes to non-attendance or difficulty engaging, reasonable adjustments should be considered before an important pathway is simply closed.

 
🧩 11. THE SINGLE PATIENT RECORD — BUILD HISTORY MATTERS INTO IT
The Government's Health Bill 2026 now proposes a Single Patient Record.

This is an enormous opportunity for patient safety.

The Government intends the Single Patient Record to bring together information currently held in separate systems and make relevant information available to patients and professionals involved in their care.

Faye's Law welcomes this.

But:

CONNECTING THE FILES IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
We ask Government to build the History Matters safety principles into the Single Patient Record as it is designed and implemented.

A connected record should help reveal:

• recurring clinically significant abnormalities
• significant blood-pressure and observation trends
• repeated or related presentations
• unresolved diagnostic questions
• medication and adverse-reaction history
• unfinished referrals and investigations
• significant childhood history
• diagnostic labels that may require reconsideration
• vulnerability and reasonable-adjustment needs
• and who owns the next clinical step.

ONE PATIENT. ONE CONNECTED HISTORY. ONE SAFETY NET.
 
🖥️ 12. DON'T JUST GIVE AN OVERWORKED CLINICIAN MORE PAGES
Joining hundreds of pages together does not automatically create safer healthcare.

Healthcare professionals are already under enormous pressure.

Faye's Law should make their job easier, not create another mountain of information.

TECHNOLOGY SHOULD DO THE SEARCHING.
The Single Patient Record should be capable of presenting an organised, dated longitudinal clinical view that helps authorised professionals identify potentially relevant existing information.

Instead of expecting a clinician to discover an important result buried deep within an old record, the system could highlight:

“Repeated abnormality detected — review trend.”

“Clinically important referral has no recorded outcome.”

“Repeated related presentations identified — view timeline.”

“Existing diagnostic label may require reconsideration in light of new objective information.”

Then:

THE CLINICIAN INTERPRETS IT.
The technology does not diagnose the patient.

It helps the clinician find the evidence.

TECHNOLOGY REMEMBERS.
CLINICIANS INTERPRET.
PATIENTS ARE SAFER.
 
🤖 13. TECHNOLOGY MUST NEVER CREATE ANOTHER DANGEROUS LABEL
Digital tools and automated summaries can help.

But they must themselves be safe.

NO COMPUTER-GENERATED LABEL SHOULD SILENTLY BECOME MEDICAL FACT.
Automated tools should assist clinical judgement, never replace it.

Every significant automated statement, pattern or alert should be traceable to the original information supporting it.

Computer-generated inferences should be identifiable as such.

Patients and healthcare professionals should have an appropriate route for identifying and challenging factual inaccuracies.

Original source information should remain available so the evidence can be checked.

TECHNOLOGY SHOULD FIND EVIDENCE — NOT MANUFACTURE CERTAINTY.
 
📱 14. PATIENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE THEIR OWN STORY
The Government has said the Single Patient Record is intended to give patients improved access to their information, with access to a core set of information through the NHS App planned from 2028.

Faye's Law strongly supports meaningful patient access.

IF INFORMATION IS BEING USED TO MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT ME, I SHOULD NORMALLY BE ABLE TO SEE IT.
This must remain subject to lawful restrictions, confidentiality requirements and appropriate protection of third-party information.

We ask for a patient-friendly:

MY HEALTH TIMELINE
Patients should be able to see relevant:

appointments → results → observations → imaging → referrals → diagnoses → medication → outcomes

Where digital access is unsuitable, an accessible alternative should exist.

PATIENTS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BECOME THEIR OWN MEDICAL DETECTIVE JUST TO UNDERSTAND THEIR HEALTH HISTORY.
Patients should also have an appropriate route for identifying factual inaccuracies while preserving the integrity and audit trail of the original record.

 
👶 15. CHILDHOOD HISTORY MUST NOT DISAPPEAR IN ADULT HEALTHCARE
Children become adults.

Relevant childhood information can still matter.

Prematurity.

Significant childhood illness.

Neurological history.

Medication reactions.

Congenital conditions.

Previous investigations.

TURNING 18 SHOULD NOT ERASE THE FIRST 18 YEARS OF THE PATIENT'S CLINICAL STORY.
Where childhood information could reasonably be relevant to adult healthcare, it should remain discoverable.

 
⚖️ 16. OMBUDSMAN REFORM — LIFETIME PATTERNS NEED A FAIR ROUTE TO INVESTIGATION
Faye's family encountered another problem after her death.

When concerns span many years, historic jurisdiction and complaint-time issues can make investigating an alleged lifelong pattern extremely difficult.

Faye was born in 1995.

Her family's concerns span childhood and adulthood.

FAYE'S LAW ASKS PARLIAMENT TO REVIEW WHETHER THE CURRENT OMBUDSMAN FRAMEWORK ADEQUATELY DEALS WITH EXCEPTIONAL LIFELONG OR CONTINUING-PATTERN CASES.
We ask Parliament to consider a carefully defined mechanism allowing historic medical evidence to be considered where materially necessary to understand later alleged failures, while preserving procedural fairness to healthcare organisations and professionals.

We also ask complaint systems to appropriately consider circumstances such as:

• bereavement
• disability
• serious illness
• cognitive impairment
• difficulty obtaining medical records
• and the exceptional complexity of multi-provider healthcare

when deciding whether a delayed complaint can nevertheless be examined.

A LIFETIME MEDICAL STORY SHOULD NOT BECOME IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND BECAUSE THE COMPLAINT SYSTEM DIVIDES THAT LIFE INTO DIFFERENT ERAS.
 
💔 WHY FAYE?
Faye Rebecca Cunningham was born prematurely and had a complex medical history extending from childhood into adulthood.

Her medical records document health problems at different stages of her life including childhood seizures, headaches and neurological symptoms, memory and cognitive difficulties, abnormal observations and test results, and significant young-onset hypertension.

Some clinicians did investigate Faye.

Tests were arranged.

Referrals were made.

Her hypertension received specialist investigation for possible secondary causes.

FAYE'S LAW SHOULD BE FAIR ENOUGH TO ACKNOWLEDGE APPROPRIATE CARE AS WELL AS QUESTION POSSIBLE FAILURES.
But Faye's family remain deeply concerned about what happened between those individual pieces of care.

Her records contain differing descriptions and interpretations of some of her symptoms and hypertension.

Her family remain concerned about whether the significance of her blood-pressure pattern was adequately recognised, treated and followed over time.

We are concerned about whether diagnostic and lifestyle labels sometimes influenced how subsequent presentations were interpreted.

Those concerns require evidence and appropriate independent scrutiny. We do not present disputed medical causation as established fact.

By adulthood, Faye had documented neurological and cognitive concerns.

In 2021, occupational therapy documented significant cognitive impairment and longstanding difficulties involving memory and learning.

Renal investigation subsequently documented bilateral renal scarring.

As her difficulties increased, Faye relied substantially upon other people to help her remember information, attend appointments and navigate healthcare.

Her family remain concerned about whether appropriate reasonable adjustments, vulnerability measures and safeguarding consideration kept pace with those difficulties.

Faye died in July 2022, aged just 27, following a catastrophic aneurysmal brain haemorrhage.

Her family believe there were missed opportunities in her care.

We remain concerned that fragmentation, incomplete follow-up, assumptions and failure to connect her accumulating history may have contributed to what happened.

Important medical questions remain unresolved, including the relationship, if any, between Faye's different health problems, renal abnormalities, young-onset hypertension and subsequent aneurysmal haemorrhage.

THOSE CAUSATION QUESTIONS BELONG WITH APPROPRIATELY QUALIFIED INDEPENDENT EXPERTS.
Faye's Law does not depend upon proving that one illness, medication, clinician or event caused everything that happened to her.

Because the patient-safety question exists regardless:

WHO WAS SEEING THE WHOLE PATIENT?
 
🌍 THIS COULD BE ANY OF US
Imagine being ill for years while every appointment effectively begins again.

Imagine having memory problems while being expected to remember every appointment, referral and instruction yourself.

Imagine repeated unexplained abnormal results becoming familiar enough that eventually nobody asks why.

Imagine a diagnostic or lifestyle label following you while new objective evidence accumulates.

Imagine one service holding one part of your history.

Your GP another.

An ambulance service another.

A specialist another.

And you are the sick person expected to connect them all.

THAT IS THE GAP HISTORY MATTERS WANTS TO CLOSE.
 
💜 FAYE'S LAW — THE MISSING SAFETY LAYER
We welcome the reforms already happening.

JESS'S RULE: Rethink repeated presentations.

MARTHA'S RULE: Listen and escalate when a patient is deteriorating.

REASONABLE ADJUSTMENT DIGITAL FLAG: Make disability-related needs and adjustments visible.

SINGLE PATIENT RECORD: Join up fragmented health information.

And:

FAYE'S LAW — HISTORY MATTERS
asks us to make that connected information clinically meaningful.

SEE THE HISTORY.
CONNECT THE PATTERN.
QUESTION THE LABEL.
PROTECT THE VULNERABLE.
SOMEONE MUST OWN THE NEXT STEP.
BUILD HISTORY MATTERS INTO THE SINGLE PATIENT RECORD.
NO MORE LABELS WITHOUT REASSESSMENT.
 
✍️ PLEASE SIGN FAYE'S LAW — HISTORY MATTERS
We cannot change what happened to Faye.

BUT WE CAN ASK WHAT HER STORY CAN CHANGE FOR SOMEBODY ELSE.
Government is building a Single Patient Record.

This is our opportunity to make sure it does more than join files together.

Let it help clinicians see patterns.

Let it show unfinished pathways.

Let it protect vulnerable patients.

Let it challenge labels when objective evidence changes.

Let patients understand their own history.

And let somebody know when they need to own the next step.

This isn't about endless testing.

It isn't about removing clinical judgement.

It isn't about blaming every healthcare professional.

And it isn't about creating another mountain of paperwork.

IT IS ABOUT BUILDING A SAFETY NET WHILE WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD IT.
Please sign for:

the child whose history needs to follow them into adulthood

the patient whose persistent abnormality deserves conscious review

the vulnerable person who cannot navigate healthcare alone

the family desperately trying to explain that something has changed

the clinician who needs the relevant history without searching hundreds of pages

and every one of us who may one day depend upon the healthcare system to remember what we cannot.

ONE PATIENT.
ONE CONNECTED HISTORY.
ONE SAFETY NET.
💜