A British firm is building powerful nuclear machines which could allow the country to rely on its own source of radioactive cancer medicine after Brexit.

Alliance Medical UK is working on two particle accelerators which will produce Technetium-99m, a radioactive isotope used to detect cancer.

The machines, known in the industry as cyclotrons, could supply up to 70 per cent of British hospitals' requirements and are expected to be operational by 2019, when Britain is due to leave the EU.