King Charles to praise healthcare workers in Christmas message amid cancer battle

King Charles' 2024 Christmas message will focus on the efforts of healthcare workers. The monarch will give a nod to healthcare staff following what has been a year which has seen both him and his daughter-in-law Catherine, Princess of Wales treated for cancer.

He is also anticipated to use his annual address to the nation to praise communities who came together in the aftermath of rioting following the fatal Southport stabbings of three young girls. It comes as Charles broke with tradition during filming of his Christmas broadcast.

It is the first time in more than a decade that the Christmas speech has been recorded from a place that is not a royal palace or estate. The message was recorded at Fitzrovia Chapel - a former sacred space of the demolished Middlesex Hospital where the late Princess Diana opened London's first dedicated Aids ward.

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It is understood the speech will reflect on international, national and personal challenges and how they can be overcome by communities supporting one another. Carla Whalen, chair of the Fitzrovia Chapel Foundation's board of trustees, said: "I assume that this space being one of calm reflection, but also thinking about health, about care, about the medical profession, would make it a pretty apt choice."

The King is understood to have tasked a team organising the broadcast to find a site away from the royal estate. He gave them a criteria the building must fulfil, including having health connections, a strong community presence and providing all faiths and none a place of solace and reflection.

They discovered the Grade II* listed building in central London, which has Byzantine-inspired architecture and is decorated in a Gothic revival style featuring marble and more than 500 stars in a gold leaf ceiling. Charles is said to have picked the chapel without visiting.

Ms Whalen said: "He was pretty surprised and kind of delighted, as far as I can tell, from coming in and discovering it. He was very interested in the marble, there's 40 types of marble here and lots of different designs and he wanted to learn about the history of the chapel and some of the people who are commemorated here."

Charles recorded his message on December 11. His mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, also recorded messages away from palaces and estates - at Southwark Cathedral in 2006 and at Combermere Barracks in Windsor three years earlier.

Speaking about the King's criteria for the building, a source said: "Obviously it made sense it had some form of health connection, because that of course has been a dominant theme for the family in all kinds of different ways. Secondly and equally importantly, that it should speak in some way of bringing communities together... thirdly of course it does help if it looks rather beautiful and is a place of spiritual solace and reflection."

The source added the King was 'absolutely bowled over by how beautiful it was and how special a place it is'. Charles announced in February that he had been diagnosed with cancer following treatment for an enlarged prostate.

Just weeks later, Kate Middleton revealed she was undergoing a course of chemotherapy. The King's ongoing treatment is understood to be heading in a positive direction.

Fitzrovia Chapel, designed by architect John Loughborough Pearson with work beginning in 1891, is a few minutes' walk from Oxford Street. It was used by patients, medical staff and the public visiting the Middlesex Hospital, which closed in 2006 and had stood on the site since 1755 before being demolished in 2008.