THE Duchess of Cornwall has become the patron of a charity that has raised more than £22m for an Oxford hospital.

The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre Charity raised money for the hospital’s redevelopment in 2011 and to create the Botnar Research Centre.

Both help people with osteoporosis, arthritis, bone cancer and other muscle and skeletal problems.

Her Royal Highness, whose mother suffered from osteoporosis and died in 1994, will become the charity’s patron for the next five years.

She will join a host of big names supporting the charity, including president Lord Tebbit and vice presidents including author Colin Dexter and footballer Martin Keown.

The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre Charity is run by appeal director Jeanette Franklin and her part-time assistant.

Mrs Franklin said: “We are delighted and honoured that The Duchess of Cornwall has accepted our invitation to become our patron.

“She is known worldwide and it will help to have such a well-known name behind us, who people respect for what she is doing in this area of research.”

The then Mrs Parker Bowles, who has been the president of the National Osteoporosis Society since 2001, first visited the hospital in 2002.

A year later she visited again to open the first phase of the Botnar Research Centre following a £5m fundraising effort by the charity.

She then agreed to become patron of the then Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre between 2006 and 2011.

She opened the £42m redevelopment of the centre in 2007 – which the charity raised £6.6m towards to build two adult wards, a children’s ward and a hydrotherapy pool – and laid the foundation stone for the second phase of the Botnar Research Centre.

The £6m second phase, which was funded by the charity, opened in January.

The centre now has 250 scientists, clinicians and support staff working to find treatments for musculoskeletal injuries, bone cancer and arthritis.

Mrs Franklin, who received an MBE for her fundraising, said: “We are now competing with Harvard and the biggest musculoskeletal centre in Europe.”

She said she hoped the Duchess of Cornwall would visit the centre again in the “not too distant future”, but said that no date had yet been set.

The Oxford Mail contacted Clarence House for a comment from Her Royal Highness but they declined.