Jessica Brady was a talented engineer at Airbus, involved in the design of satellites.
Her mum, Andrea, told Radio 4’s Today programme that Jess was a very healthy young woman when the pandemic hit in 2020.
But in July of that year, she didn’t feel right and contacted her GP practice repeatedly over the next five months about her symptoms.
Over time they became “increasingly debilitating”, Andrea says.
“She had unintentionally lost quite a lot of weight, had night sweats, chronic fatigue, a persistent cough and very enlarged lymph nodes.
“But because of her age, it was obviously considered there wasn’t anything wrong.”
Jess had contact with six different doctors at her GP surgery and three face-to-face consultations with a family doctor, but no referral to a specialist was made.
“Her body was failing her,” says Andrea.
“It was hard for Jess to advocate for herself. She was saying ‘What’s the point? Nothing will happen.'”
When the family decided to arrange a private appointment and she was referred to a specialist, it was too late.
Jess was given a terminal cancer diagnosis in November and died three weeks later – just days before Christmas 2020.
The family hopes Jess’s Rule will help to increase awareness of the importance of GPs acting quickly for patients who are steadily deteriorating.
“She wanted to make a difference,” Andrea says.
“Jess knew her delayed diagnosis was instrumental in the fact she had no treatment options open to her, only palliative care.
“She felt strongly she didn’t want this to happen to other people.”