A BASE for people who have, or who are at risk of inheriting, genetic health conditions has been set up at Oxford’s Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.

The Oxford Centre for Genomic Medicine has officially opened the doors at is new home where it hopes to support patients with advice and genetic testing.

Consultant in clinical genetics and lead clinician, Dr Debbie Shears, said: “This is really important as we see a lot of families and will be offering a cutting-edge service in a high-quality environment which is truly modern and allows our patients the dignity and respect they deserve.

“I am incredibly proud of it.”

The centre will offer tests such as carrier detection or prenatal diagnosis and will work closely with many other departments in the trust, including Cancer Services, the Inherited Heart Disease Clinic, Children’s Services and Maternity Services.

Oxford University Hospitals is taking part in a project, 100,000 Genomes, to aid research and improve diagnosis and clinical outcomes.

The project invites eligible patients with rare diseases and cancers to provide health data and blood an tissue samples for decoding a person’s genes.

Lead genetic counsellor Barbara Stayner said: “The 100,000 genomes project is hopefully going to provide answers for families with rare diseases who have been waiting a long time to try to understand the cause of the disability or problem in their family.”

Oxford University hospitals said that the city is one of the highest recruiters for the national project based on its population.