She has chosen the project as the subject of her first public speech abroad in an attempt to draw attention to the importance of the hospice movement in countries where it is still in its infancy.
To date, the Duchess has taken on patronages of only four charities, including East Anglia Children’s Hospices (EACH), for whom she opened a centre in Ipswich earlier this year, making her first major speech on home soil.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will arrive in Singapore tomorrow at the start of a nine-day tour of Commonwealth nations in the Far East as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, their second official trip as a couple following their hugely successful visit to Canada and the US last year.
The Duchess’s decision to make her maiden speeches both at home and abroad in hospices is a strong indicator that the movement is the cause that she feels most passionately about as she carves out her own public role.
Her private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton said: “The Duchess wanted to establish contacts between her charities here and charities overseas, and she hopes that a legacy of this visit will be to get a dialogue going between EACH and Hospis Malaysia.”

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