The Duchess of Cornwall is to carry out her first solo engagement as a member of the Royal Family. Camilla, who married the Prince of Wales last month, will visit Southampton General Hospital in her capacity as president of the National Osteoporosis Society.

The visit – her first official appearance without her husband – was originally to take place on April 25, but was postponed early last month. Clarence House said it would have been insensitive for the Duchess to visit a hospital in the run-up to the General Election.

Camilla, whose mother and grandmother both suffered from the crippling brittle bone disease, is to tour the osteoporosis unit. The Duchess described her mother Rosalind Shand’s agonising ordeal in a speech at an international summit on the condition in 2002. She described how her mother’s experience led to her own involvement with the society.

“The quality of her life became so dismal and her suffering so unbearable that she just gave up the fight and lost the will to live,” she said.

Camilla will also open the hospital’s Medical Research Council Epidemiology Resource Centre during the two-hour visit