Staff and patients at The Christie were given a royal treat yesterday (7th February 2007) after being visited by Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

The Prince and Duchess spent time meeting cancer patients receiving foot and back massages, reflexology and acupuncture as part of the hospital's complementary therapies service.

The Prince is no stranger to the complementary therapies service at the Christie, which won a national Prince of Wales Award for "Good Practice in Integrated Healthcare' in 2003. Dr Peter Mackereth, one of the lead practitioners of the service, also won the "Guardian Public Servant of the Year' award in 2005.

On their tour the royal couple also looked at the hospital's new £7million critical care unit, which opened in December 2006, and met with staff who were instrumental in making the new unit happen. The high-tech, eight bed critical care unit is designed to help cancer patients through the most difficult part of their treatment, either following complex surgery or because of the medical condition.

Professor Dame Joan Higgins, chair of The Christie, said: "A royal visit is a very special occasion for our patients and staff and everyone was doubly excited to have both the Prince and Duchess visit us. We are very proud of our hospital and honoured to show them round."

Note to editors:

The Christie is one of the largest single site cancer centres in Europe - registering around 12,000 new patients and treating about 40,000 patients every year across Greater Manchester and Cheshire.

It also runs one of the largest clinical trials units in the country for phase I/II trials and is a partner in the Manchester Cancer Research Centre with The University of Manchester, Paterson Institute for Cancer Research and Cancer Research UK.

The complementary therapies team provides a wide range of treatments to patients - including massage, reflexology, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, aromatherapy and relaxation classes - plus free massages to carers. Treatments are integrated with all other cancer treatments and bring a host of benefits to make the symptoms of cancer more tolerable. These include help with nausea, pain, anxiety and sleep.

The new critical care unit was funded by the local NHS and has a high-tech eight bed facility, an inbuilt pharmacy and laboratory, training facilities for nurses and overnight rooms for relatives and nursing staff.

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