The 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II’s doctors are “concerned” about her health and have recommended that she be placed under medical supervision at her Scottish castle of Balmoral, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday.
“Following further assessment this morning, the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended that she remain under medical surveillance,” it said.
“The queen continues to feel comfortable and will stay at Balmoral,” where she usually spends the late summer, the palace added in a brief statement.
The closest members of his family were informed of his condition, said the British news agency PA, while the new Prime Minister Liz Truss expressed the country’s concern over the news.
The heir to the crown, Prince Charles, 73, and his eldest son, William, 40, set out for Balmoral, some 800km north of London, their respective offices announced.
The health of the elderly monarch has been a matter of growing concern since last October it was learned that she had spent a night hospitalized to undergo medical “tests” whose nature was never specified.
Since then, she has reduced her schedule very considerably, her public appearances are increasingly rare and in them she is often seen walking with difficulty aided by a cane.
The country “deeply worried”
In June, the United Kingdom celebrated the Platinum Jubilee in style, the 70th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Elizabeth II, who increasingly delegates more official functions to Prince Charles.
On Tuesday the monarch had received at Balmoral the resigning Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his successor at the head of the Conservative Party, whom he commissioned to form a government as the new leader of the parliamentary majority.
An image of the ceremony released by Buckingham Palace, in which the monarch was seen shaking hands with Truss, caused concern because the queen’s hand appeared unusually purple.
For the first time in her long tenure Elizabeth II had decided to stay at Balmoral rather than return to London, where the transition usually takes place, due to her health problems.
“The entire country will be deeply troubled by the news from Buckingham Palace this afternoon,” Truss tweeted Thursday.
“My thoughts – and those of everyone in the UK – are with Her Majesty the Queen and her family,” he added.
On Wednesday night, the royal house had announced that the monarch decided to postpone an online event after her doctors advised her to rest.
Elizabeth II was virtually absent from her platinum jubilee celebrations, appearing only twice briefly on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to greet the tens of thousands of people gathered there.
However, a few weeks later he took part in various public events in Scotland, appearing smiling and carrying a cane at an armed forces parade in Edinburgh in late June.
