The Queen and her family always have the support of various aides and staff on their royal tours and engagements, but there is one person who is never far from Her Majesty’s side – and chances are you’ve never noticed them.
According to royal reporter Gordon Rayner, who has been on 20 royal tours, the monarch is always accompanied by a Royal Navy doctor on her travels, having researched the nearest hospitals in advance. The doctor carries equipment including a mobile defibrillator and emergency medicine around in case of emergency, and is said to never be more than a few paces away from the Queen at any time.
The Queen never travels without a doctor
The first in line to the throne, Prince Charles, receives similar treatment during his own royal tours, although his entourage is smaller than his mother’s as he is not head of state. On his royal tour of the Gambia with the Duchess of Cornwall, the couple have been joined by their doctor, Professor Charles Deakin. Meanwhile, in countries where a reliable blood supply is difficult to come by, both the Queen and her eldest son travel with their own personal packs of blood following in their convoy wherever they go.
MORE: The Queen's doctor, Peter Fisher, is killed in tragic accident
However, the younger members of the royal family – including Charles’ sons Princes William and Harry – don’t travel with their own medic. Instead, they are believed to have local doctors assigned to them in the host countries when they travel. This may have been particularly beneficial during Prince Harry and Meghan’s most recent royal tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, given her recent pregnancy announcement and the moderate risk of Zika virus in the latter two countries.
Peter Fisher was one of the Queen's doctors
In August it was revealed that one of the Queen’s three official doctors, Peter Fisher, was tragically killed in a road accident while he was cycling in Holborn, London. Peter was a physician to the 92-year-old monarch, and well-respected in the medical field as the director of research at University College London Hospital's Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (RLHIM).
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Gregg White, Chief Executive of the Faculty of Homeopathy, told HELLO!: "It is no exaggeration to say that in Peter we have lost an irreplaceable talent, a giant in all his fields of professional endeavour - as a clinician, a researcher, an academic and the champion of medical homeopathy. The loss is huge to his family and our community."
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