Research charity Fighting Blindness is to offer free genetic screening to around 3,000 people with an inherited eye condition causing blindness.
Up to now, screening has been too costly to provide on a wide-scale basis.
A national register will be set up of patients who get involved and the charity hopes this will help find cures and treatments for blindness.
Genetic screening can help find the genes responsible for a patients' condition.
It can give them more accurate information about the progression and severity of their disease.
New technology allows researchers to screen for genes already known to be involved in causing blindness and to screen for genes not previously linked to retinal degeneration.
Fighting Blindness says this should make it more likely that the genetic cause of a person's eye condition will be found.
The national register will also open up the possibility of some patients being included in gene-specific clinical treatment trials in the future.
Patients can get more information here.
