The Princess of Wales paid a surprise visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital to see the effects of her fundraising efforts of completing the National Three Peaks Challenge earlier this summer.
Catherine said that completing the rigorous challenge was “my small way of being able to give back and say thank you to you” for the care she received during her preventative chemotherapy treatment in 2024.
Speaking with the Royal Marsden Hospital’s Chair, Sir Douglas Flint, the future queen said, “I had incredible care here and support from a huge team and I’m really, really grateful on a personal level. But also the holistic care, the treatments and therapeutic support on the outside is so important.”
While visiting, Catherine saw the plans for the new Centre for Holistic Wellbeing and Recovery, which her fundraising efforts have helped support, and viewed the spot where it will be built.
The royal also met with cancer patients to learn about their journeys and how the holistic care they’ve received at the Royal Marsden has been beneficial to their treatment.
In her fundraising letter on the Royal Marsden Hospital’s website earlier this summer, Catherine wrote, “I have taken on the National Three Peaks Challenge, not simply as a physical endeavour but as a chance to explore life beyond diagnosis and to give something back. The Royal Marsden is a place that holds great meaning for me and whose care and expertise are life changing for so many people.”
Catherine’s support for the hospital will lead to greater provisions of holistic care, the Royal Marsden wrote. Her fundraising will lead to the development of a new holistic care centre “that will reshape the future of what cancer care looks like” and a specialist programme to create access to holistic care for all patients “to enhance physical, psychological and emotional recovery.”
Catherine is believed to be the first member of the British Royal Family to complete the challenge, summiting Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in England, and Snowdon in Wales within 24 hours. She completed the trek on her own with help from Mountain Rescue teams along the way.
Catherine now serves as Joint Patron, alongside her husband, of The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. She assumed the role in 2025, the same year she announced that she was officially in remission.
The royal completed the challenge in part, to “explore life beyond diagnosis” she said.
