💜 FAYE'S LAW — HISTORY MATTERS
SEE THE HISTORY • CONNECT THE PATTERN • PROTECT THE PATIENT

My daughter Faye Rebecca Cunningham died on 29 July 2022.

She was just 27 years old.

Her death certificate records:

1a — Spontaneous subarachnoid haemorrhage
2 — Hypertensive disease

I cannot change what happened to my daughter.

But I can fight to make sure her life means something for the patients who come after her.

Why Faye's Law?
Since Faye died, I have gone back through her medical history from birth to death.

What I found was not simply the story of her final hospital admission.

It was 27 years of medical history, spread across different appointments, hospitals, GP practices, specialists and services.

Individual pieces of information may appear small when viewed alone.

But when someone's history is brought together, those pieces can form a pattern.

That is the heart of Faye's Law.

A patient should not have to become critically ill — or a family lose someone they love — before somebody finally looks backwards and connects their history.

And there is another problem.
Families trying to investigate what happened can encounter time limits.

Under current NHS complaints rules, complaints should normally be made within 12 months of the event, or when the person became aware of the issue. There are exceptions where there are good reasons for the delay and an investigation can still be carried out fairly.

But what happens when the very thing a family discovers is a pattern stretching across 10, 20 or 27 years?

What happens when nobody recognised that pattern while the patient was alive?

A family cannot complain about a lifelong pattern they did not yet know existed.

That is one reason I believe History Matters.

What are we asking to change?
We want a healthcare and patient-safety system that:

💜 Looks at relevant medical history when symptoms, abnormal results or unexplained problems keep recurring.

💜 Connects patterns across services, rather than treating every attendance as an isolated event.

💜 Follows up abnormal and borderline findings so important results do not simply disappear into years of records.

💜 Questions existing labels when new evidence emerges, instead of allowing a previous explanation to prevent appropriate reassessment.

💜 Protects vulnerable patients who may struggle to communicate, remember their history or navigate different services.

💜 Creates a meaningful route for reviewing historic patterns where serious patient-safety concerns only become apparent years later.

This petition isn't asking you to decide what happened to Faye.
Those questions belong with the appropriate independent, clinical, coronial and legal processes.

This petition asks something bigger: should we learn from cases like hers?

Medical records should not simply preserve history.

History should protect the patient.

Faye was my daughter.

She laughed. She loved. She had a family. She had a future.

She was only 27.

I cannot bring her home.

But if looking at Faye's 27 years helps create a system that connects another patient's history sooner, asks another question, follows up another result, or prevents another family having to reconstruct their loved one's life after they have gone, then her voice can still make a difference.

💜 PLEASE SIGN FAYE'S LAW — HISTORY MATTERS
Don't sign it only for Faye.

Sign it for yourself.
Sign it for your children.
Sign it for your parents.
Sign it for the patient whose story is currently scattered across hundreds of medical records.

Because none of us knows when our own history might become the most important part of our care.

SEE THE HISTORY • CONNECT THE PATTERN • PROTECT THE PATIENT

In loving memory of
Faye Rebecca Cunningham
20 April 1995 – 29 July 2022