Inside the hospital treating Kate, with chefs, a concierge and Molton Brown toiletries

With meals crafted using fish sourced from Cornish day boats and medical technology that includes 3D-printed artificial hip joints, the private hospital treating the Princess of Wales is carefully calibrated to meet the needs of the more monied echelons of society.

Opened in 1932 on the edge of Regent’s Park, the London Clinic describes itself as offering “top facilities and little extras” to help treat and return its patients to full health in exchange for fees that start from £15,160 for shoulder replacement surgery and £2,070 for an adult circumcision.

On Thursday, the Prince of Wales arrived at the hospital, which sits close to the epicentre of London’s private health provision in Harley Street, to visit his wife who is expected to spend up to two weeks as an in-patient after undergoing abdominal surgery.

Among the “little extras” that the hospital provides is a concierge service to, among other possibilities, book football match tickets, make arrangements for security and schooling, charter aircraft and offer access to “luxury retail”.

It also takes considerable pride in upsetting conventional views of the dubious pleasures of hospital food with a team of chefs providing the sort of menu which, according to some patient reviews, would not look out of place in a four-star hotel. A breathless description of the clinic’s food-sourcing policy notes that its kitchen managers have “long-standing relationships with Smithfield meat market, Billingsgate [fish market], Home Counties farms and Cornish day boats”.

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By way of an additional touch, the facilities in each room range from air conditioning and flat-screen televisions to the provision of high-end Molton Brown toiletries.

Such fripperies, however, only sit alongside the hospital’s main offering – what it describes as its “world class” healthcare and facilities.

The clinic, which is run as a charity to reinvest its earnings, has spent heavily on state-of-the-art care, including robotic surgery and a highly-rated cancer unit.

Alongside services such as producing bespoke artificial joints using 3D printing technology, the hospital is also one of the largest centres in Europe for collecting stem cells used in transplant treatments.

Its website lists some 263 types of treatment, ranging from carpal tunnel release surgery for £2,185 to a disc prolapse procedure costing £9,470, to a range of state-of-the-art cancer treatments and surgical interventions for which prices go unspecified.

According to its latest inspection carried out in 2021 by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) health watchdog, the London Clinic is overall rated as “good”, with “outstanding” end-of-life care. The CQC at the time highlighted concerns about leadership in its surgery unit, which it rated as “inadequate”. The hospital said it was putting measures in place to meet the watchdog’s concerns. In its latest annual report, the London Clinic said 98.6 per cent of its patients had rated their care as “good” or “very good”.

Alongside the nearby King Edward VII Hospital, the London Clinic has a long history of both treating and being visited by senior royals. The London Clinic was opened by the future King George VI – the current King’s grandfather – and his wife, the future Queen Mother.

Facilities at the hospital have been variously opened over the years by the late Queen Elizabeth and King Charles, when he was Prince of Wales.

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Despite the enthusiasm of the Royal Family to recognise and celebrate the NHS, few of its members choose to be treated by it. As well as Kate, the late Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Margaret underwent procedures at the London Clinic.

The hospital has also treated dignitaries and VIPs ranging from Clement Attlee, the Labour Prime Minister who underwent prostate surgery there in 1939, and a young US Congressman by the name of John F Kennedy, who was treated for Addison’s Disease in 1947. David Cameron, the current Foreign Secretary, was born at the London Clinic in 1966, while actor Elizabeth Taylor had knee surgery there in 1963 after falling on a film set.

According to its most recent accounts for the end of 2022, the hospital makes about £160m a year from fees charged to its patients. In 2022, it had 120,000 patient visits, of which some 22,000 were in-patient admissions or day cases.

Among them were 1,045 NHS patients who were able to sample the hospital’s services under arrangements to reduce post-Covid waiting lists.