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King Charles has personally honoured his senior medical staff who treated him for cancer for their personal service to the monarch and the royal family.
Dr Douglas Glass, Charles’ GP and the apothecary to the King, and Professor Richard Leach, his physician, have both been recognised.
It comes after a year in which both the King and and the Princess of Wales were diagnosed with cancer. The king continued nearly full duties while he was being treated by his medical team, while Kate is currently making a gradual return to her public engagements.
Dr Glass previously worked among the royal family, having served as Queen Elizabeth II’s apothecary in her later years. He was present at Balmoral when she died in September 2022.
He has been appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (RVO), having already been awarded the role of Lieutenant.
RVO awards are issued without advice from the Prime Minister and recognise services to the sovereign and the royal family, often those who have served the monarch in a personal way.
Commander is the third highest of these honours, and Lieutenant the fourth.
Prof Leach, a consultant physician at the King Edward VII’s Hospital in central London – where the royals have been treated for decades – was made Lieutenant of the RVO.
He is also a physician at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital Trust, where he acts as a clinical director for pulmonary and critical care medicine.
Dame Annabel Whitehead was also recognised for her services as a lady-in-waiting to the late Queen for the two decades before her death. She had been made a Dame Commander of the RVO, and will now become a lady of the household, assisting the monarch in hosting formal events at Buckingham Palace.
She has been appointed a Dame Grand Cross, the highest accolade of the RVO.
More than 1,200 people from across the UK have received honours in the New Year list.
Actor Stephen Fry, former England manager Gareth Southgate and London mayor Sadiq Khan have been knighted in the New Year Honours.
Honours have also gone to a host of Team GB athletes, including runner Keely Hodgkinson, who was named the 2024 BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and mountain biker Tom Pidcock, after the Paris Olympics.
There are also honours for those who campaigned on behalf of wrongfully convicted subpostmasters, after the Horizon IT scandal.
Creator of the Tracy Beaker series, Jacqueline Wilson, has been made a Dame Grand Cross (GBE) for services to literature, while actress Carey Mulligan and television presenter Alan Titchmarsh become Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sir Kazuo Ishiguro was made a Companion of Honour for services to literature.
