Duchess Sophie strengthens Princess Anne message with meaningful visit

The Duchess of Edinburgh dove right into royal duties after Buckingham Palace released a heartfelt letter from Princess Anne about a challenging year.

Sophie, who is dubbed as the ‘secret weapon’ for King Charles’s reign, visited the headquarters of Thames Valley Air Ambulance after the service experienced its “busiest year yet”. The Duchess is a Royal Patron of the charity was praised for her support as she toured the facility.

Prince Edward’s wife saw the expanded education and operations areas. She also saw how the crew had been using the new state-of-the-art technology to make operations more efficient.

The charity shared that the critical care paramedic and doctor crews were called out 3302 times in 2025. A paramedic at the charity, James Perks, revealed that the new advancements has really helped them cater to cases and save more lives.

“I think something the duchess picked up upon was that it’s not just the procedures or the medicine actually, it’s deploying that and delivering that in austere environments and that’s what we can do by having these facilities around us.”

Sophie then unveiled the plaque to officially commemorate the visit.

The visit resonated with the message the Princess Anne had delivered in her personal statement released for Carer’s Trust earlier this week. Anne had noted that carers, which includes services of paramedics, are “the backbone of our society, giving service to friends and family; a service given out of love despite the high price in terms of their own financial and emotional wellbeing”.

Anne had also noted that 2025 has been a “challenging year” for careers, and Sophie seemed to have carried that message forward by showing up to support the charity.