Prince William and Kate Middleton visited to meet young cancer sufferers

Almost 30 years after Princess Diana toured Royal Marsden Hospital in Surrey, England, on her first solo engagement, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited to meet young cancer sufferers.

William and Kate spoke with patients in the hospital’s new £18million Oak Centre for Children and Young People, sharing a joke with leukaemia sufferer Digby Davidson after making themselves comfortable on his bed.

The Duke also met seven-year-old Ellis Andrews, who is waiting for a bone marrow transplant, while the Duchess (wearing an Amanda Wakeley oatmeal felt dress with three-quarter length sleeves) chatted to Fabian Bate, nine, who was in the middle of four hours of chemotherapy to treat acute lymphoblastic leukaemia for the second time.

William is president of the Royal Marsden – the first hospital in the world dedicated to cancer treatment and research into the causes of the disease. He succeeded his mother, who took on the role in 1989 until her death in 1997.