A WOMAN who may have been given contaminated blood at a Barrow hospital says compensation should have been paid by the Government a year ago.

Dena Peacock found out she had hepatitis C in 2017, decades after she received blood transfusions following the births of two of her six children.

The 60-year-old is among around 30,000 victims of the infected blood scandal and was among those who headed to London to see the final report of a public inquiry into the issue.

Inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff found people were repeatedly failed, with evidence of a cover-up.

Government minister John Glen announced yesterday a compensation scheme that will see interim payments of £210,000 for the most urgent cases.

But Ms Peacock, who now lives in Warrington, said the Government should have started payouts already, with more victims dying every week.

She said: "Rishi Sunak didn't need to wait a year for compensation after Sir Brian recommended it.

"It's another year of people dying."

Ms Peacock gave evidence to the public inquiry in 2019, telling Sir Brian in a witness statement that she may have contracted hepatitis at the age of 16 from Roose Hospital, which closed in 1993.

Six weeks after the delivery of her first child a check-up found she had afterbirth retained and was rushed to the hospital for an emergency procedure that required a blood transfusion.

She received another blood transfusion following the birth of her second child at a hospital in Preston and is not certain which procedure saw her given infected blood.

Ms Peacock said she had little faith in the authorities to put things right and said the Government had broken promises to work quickly to right wrongs.

Ahead of the announcement, she said she was eager to find out when compensation would be paid but added: "I'll believe it when I see it in my bank."

She also called for prosecutions to be brought against those responsible.

And Ms Peacock added to calls by other victims for Lord Clarke, a former health secretary, to be stripped of his honours for his role in the scandal;

The peer was heavily criticised in the inquiry, with the final report describing his manner as 'argumentative', 'unfairly dismissive' and 'disparaging' towards those who have suffered, with Sir Brian saying he played 'some part' in that suffering.