'Ashamed': Kit Sampson angry (Pic: Anglia Press)

Kit Sampson, 80, was awarded the MBE 14 years ago for her pioneering healthcare work with travelling communities.

But now she says she is ashamed at the government for failing to stop Gypsies being criminalised.

She says prejudice can only be combated if ministers change the law to provide more caravan sites.

Speaking to the BBC, Ms Sampson said: "I'm giving the medal back because I'm ashamed of having an award from a government that treats Gypsies or travellers so badly that it discriminates against them so that children can't go to school, women can't get ante-natal care and babies don't get their immunisations.

"They are being denied access to health care, a home life and schooling."

I remember one campaign meeting and I came out to be spat at, kicked and hit by residents - the abusive phone calls and letters still came Kit Sampson 'Prejudice' defeated Gypsy reform

Ms Sampson said the shortage in sites meant it was impossible for many families to plan because they rarely knew where they would be, one moment to the next.

"When a pregnant woman calls a hospital and says she wants to have some ante-natal care, and she is currently living by the side of the A12 near Ipswich, they just don't want to know."

The Lowestoft pensioner began working with travelling communities 40 years ago when she answered an appeal from a sympathetic council official who wanted help in defending a Gypsy encampment.

She went on to pioneer a nationwide Save the Children programme to provide mobile immunisation centres to Gypsy children.

She eventually became a specialist NHS Gypsy liaison officer, improving the way health authorities get their services to travelling communities.

Today, Gypsies still have some of the worst life expectancies and health problems in the UK. Many children miss out on key vaccinations.

Although now retired, Ms Sampson regularly visits travellers in prison in an effort to bring down levels of suicide and self-harm.

'Situation worsening'

But Ms Sampson said the situation was worsening because the law had "criminalised" the community.

The 1994 Criminal Justice Act had removed a duty on local councils to provide sites, despite a long fight in the late 1960s to create this obligation.

Reform: Ministers are reviewing policy

As councils closed sites, more and more Gypsies had found themselves without places to camp, she said.

"Everyone has the right to live somewhere," she said.

"A Gypsy once said to me that even the birds have their nests. But under government policy, that just doesn't happen; there is nowhere for thousands of Gypsies to go."

Ms Sampson compared the public backlash against Gypsies in some areas to the Nazis, saying the reaction was "almost jack-booted" and equivalent to "ethnic cleansing".

"I remember one campaign meeting and I came out to be spat at, kicked and hit by residents. I'm a pacifist so I just turned away. But the abusive phone calls and letters still came."

A major report for Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott recently warned that the UK needed to create thousands of more stopping places for Gypsies. Senior police officers and the Commission for Racial Equality have also called for change.

Ministers say they are reviewing policy. However, recent backbench attempts to reform the law have come to nothing.

Ms Sampson said while changing the law was an essential first step, change had to come from within people themselves.

"A Gypsy is a good friend. The people who find that hard to believe have never been inside their trailers.

"If they had, they would realise that they are not such bad, dreadful people after all.

"The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child starts off saying that mankind owes to the child the best it has to give.

"Well Great Britain certainly does not give Gypsy children the best."