ABSTRACT
Genetic counselling, one of the key parts of medical genetics, was also one of the earliest, beginning in Britain almost immediately after the end of World War II, at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London. Over the following decades a comprehensive network of genetic counselling clinics developed across Britain, mainly based in regional medical genetics centres under NHS clinical geneticists and closely linked with other genetic services. Accurate genetic risk estimation and genetic diagnosis were initially the principal elements, but psychological aspects became progressively more recognised and important, especially as non-medical genetic counsellor posts were introduced and training programmes for them created. With increasing genetic and genomic applications and their use in wider medicine, the need for genetic counselling is greater than ever and its nature is continuing to evolve, as is its relationship with other aspects of medical genetics.
