Prince William gets emotional at mental health panel

Prince William has opened up about how a traumatic incident during his work as an Air Ambulance Pilot makes him get emotional about his children.

The Duke of Cambridge was on a panel to discuss the importance of tackling mental health at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

During the discussion he was asked if there was a "particular moment at work" that helped him realise the importance of being open about mental health issues.

"Yes and I still find it very difficult to talk about. I get very emotional about it because it relates very closely to my children and so it is very hard to talk about it," the 36-year-old replied.

"And lots of people in the medical community have these particular cases where I don't think you ever get over it because you go through someone else's pain and you live with it."

"I know that if I hadn't taken the action that I did then, I would have definitely gone down a slippery slope and I would have been dealing with mental illness on a different level."

Talking about his need to protect his children's mental health – Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – he added: "We have to start tackling this now so that our children and our grandchildren don't have to go through this process and they can be more open about it."