Prince Harry was mobbed by nurses as he walked through Birmingham Children’s Hospital on Thursday, hugging one female medic and posing for a group shot with around a dozen nurses. “Thank you for everything you do,” he told them, before delivering a speech to mark the 20-year milestone of WellChild’s specialist nursing programme. “I don’t know if you hear it enough, the difference that you make every single day is quite literally changing daily lives,” the duke said, adding that he understood the “financial difficulties” facing the NHS.
The visit came amid mounting speculation that the Duchess of Sussex and their children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, would join Harry in the UK this week. According to reports, Meghan is expected to arrive for “private family events, away from the cameras” after Harry’s Invictus Games commitments. The duke will on Friday attend the one-year-to-go event at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, where he will watch and take part in exhibition events alongside previous Invictus competitors.
“Prince Harry mobbed at children's hospital as reports suggest Meghan and children will join him for private family events.”
Any reunion would be the first time King Charles has seen his grandchildren since the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022 – the only occasion the monarch has met Lilibet. The Mirror reported that Charles, 77, has instructed senior aides to engage in ongoing talks with the Sussexes to secure time in his busy diary around Friday or Saturday. Meghan’s spokesperson declined to comment, and representatives have not confirmed the visit.
Harry’s week-long trip follows a protracted legal battle with the Home Office over security arrangements, after his level of protection changed when he stepped down as a working royal in 2020. When he lost a Court of Appeal challenge last year, he gave a BBC interview in which he revealed Charles would not speak to him because of the security court case. “I can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK at this point,” Harry said then.
While Harry was in Birmingham, his brother Prince William played crazy golf in Hastings and King Charles examined a penguin at London Zoo. The contrasting images underscored the family’s ongoing divisions, even as the prospect of a private reunion hovered over the week’s events.
