A DAUGHTER whose mum died after the NHS failed to give her a breast screening hit out last night at the “needless” death toll.

Tragic Trixie Gough was among 450,000 patients who missed out on potentially life-saving cancer scans due to a computer error lasting nine years.

8 Trixie Gough is one of 270 women who died following a NHS scandal

The grandmother died aged 76 in December 2015 after a lump was found and tests showed the disease had al­ready spread through her body.

Daughter Belinda, 57, said: “I’m angry — someone needs to be held accountable.

“I’m amazed that it has taken them the best part of a decade to spot the problem.

“There are thousands of real people involved in this — people like my mum — who didn’t deserve to lose their lives.”

8 Trixie, pictured with husband Brian before she fell ill, died in 2015

8 Her husband said he was "gobsmacked" by the scandal

8 Trixie Gough pictured on Christmas Day in 2015 three days before she lost her cancer battle

Nurse Patricia Minchin has accused the NHS of a cover-up after she also fell victim to the IT error.

She admitted: “I don’t know if I’m going to survive.” The gran and mum of four, 75, developed cancer in 2015, two years after her scan invite was missed.

Patricia, of Bushey, Herts, said it has since spread to her lymph nodes,

She said: “I would like an explanation from somebody why this happened. They obviously knew about it for some time and they shouldn’t have covered it up for so long. I feel let down.”

8 Nurse Patricia Minchin has accused the NHS of a cover-up

Their stories emerged as Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted up to 270 women may have died as a result of the IT mistake — branded one of the worst scandals in NHS history.

He blamed “administrative incompetence” and questioned why the 2009 error had only been picked up earlier this year.

He has now launched an independent review to establish the exact causes.

Mr Hunt said: “The fact is, for many years oversight of our screening programme has not been good enough.

8 Jeremy Hunt is set to launch and independent inquiry into the NHS failing Credit: parliamentlive/

“We think it was a single IT mistake that was made right at the start of the programme, but nonetheless there must have been clues that could have been picked up.”

Women aged 50 to 70 are invited for breast cancer checks every three years under a £75million NHS scheme.

About 2.5 million invites are sent out annually, with official estimates saying the programme finds more than 18,000 tu­mours and saves 1,300 lives.

HAVE you been affected by the breast cancer screening scandal? Call the Sun Newsdesk on 020 7782 4104, text 07423 720250 or email exclusive@the-sun.co.uk

A trial looking at extending the scheme to women aged between 47 and 73 required a change to the invitations system. It led to a mistake, meaning some covered by both standard screening and the experiment were missed out if they were aged over 68.

But the error was not identified till January when officials started reviewing the progress of the trial, named AgeX.

Screening is overseen and “quality assured” by Public Health England. Senior health sources asked why the agency had failed to spot that thousands of letters were not going out.

8 450,000 women aged 68 to 71 did NOT receive an invite to their final mammogram Credit: Getty - Contributor

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IF YOU FEAR YOU'RE AFFECTED? WOMEN who are affected will receive a letter informing them this month, Mr Hunt said. Those who are worried can, in the meantime, call a helpline set up by the NHS to offer advice - on 0800 169 2692. Mr Hunt said women affected will advised of their next steps according to their age now. Those under 72 will be invited for a catch up mammogram, which will be scheduled in the next six months. PHE said today they expect all rescreens to be completed by October this year. Those women over the age of 72 will be advised of whether another mammogram will be beneficial to them. For older women, treating breast cancer can prove more arduous than the disease itself, and so women over 72 will be offered support and expert advice. Mr Hunt stressed it is a woman's individual choice, and anyone who wants another screening will be offered one.

8 Between 130 and 270 women could have lost their lives to breast cancer as a result of the IT glitch Credit: PA:Press Association

And they questioned why they did not act — instead flagging it as a “limited” risk. Of the 450,000 women denied screening, around 140,000 are now dead.

Mr Hunt admitted some had “their lives shortened as a result” and promised the NHS would pay compensation.

Stephen Webber, chairman of the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers, said yesterday: “I’d expect compensation in this situation to run into millions, if not tens of millions.”

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Officials are now writing to the remaining 310,000 women by the end of May to offer them a catch-up appointment.

Breast cancer strikes around 55,000 Brits a year and kills 11,000. Just over two million are screened annually.

Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, said: “We’re extremely concerned that so many wo­m­en have been let down by such a colossal systematic failure.”

EARLY DIAGNOSIS KEY TO SAVING LIVES Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of the disease in UK women. One in eight women across the nation will develop the disease in their lifetime and experts advise that women should check their breasts each month for signs of cancer, starting in their 20s. Nearly 1,000 people die from breast cancer every month in the UK, with the disease killing around 11,500 women and 80 men each year. Survival rates for the disease vary depending on age and the stage at which it's picked up, highlighting why early diagnosis is so important. Every breast cancer patient caught at stage 1 survives at least one year, while at stage four that number is just 63 per cent. Five-year survival rates are 99 per cent if diagnosed at stage 1 but plummets to just 15 per cent at stage 4 - the most advanced stage, when the cancer has already spread. The age group most likely to survive the disease is women aged 60-69, with a five-year survival rate of 92 per cent, based on data from 2009-2013. Those aged between 40 and 59 also have a good chance of surviving breast cancer. But after the age of 69 survival rates drop and just 70 per cent and women aged over 80 are expected to beat the disease, according to Cancer Research UK. As with any cancer early detection is crucial for survival, that’s why regular mammograms are vital. Around two million women are screened for breast cancer each year. The NHS Breast Screening Programme is currently for women aged between 50 and 70, and involves screening every three years. In some parts of England, this has been opened to women aged 47 to 73 years old as part of a trial.

HAVE you been affected by the breast cancer screening scandal? Call the Sun Newsdesk on 020 7782 4104, text 07423 720250 or email exclusive@the-sun.co.uk