King Charles III is expected to use his annual Christmas message to highlight health workers, at the end of a year in which both he and the Princess of Wales were diagnosed with cancer.

King Charles has strayed from royal tradition with his year’s Christmas speech. The monarch, 76, who opted to break tradition last year by writing the speech himself, has prerecorded his festive broadcast in a different location to that of previous years.

After a year that saw both King Charles and Kate Middleton diagnosed with cancer, “Obviously it made sense it had some form of health connection," a source said