Addenbrooke's Hospital is renowned worldwide for its treatment of patients with cancer - yet the latest addition to its services can be found on every high street.

The Cambridge hospital has just opened a beauty parlour to host make-up sessions for female patients who have been scarred physically and emotionally by the disease and its treatments.

While beauty regimes may be far from the minds of many people with cancer, others swear by the therapeutic benefits.

As patient Joanne Morgan says: "It gives you a boost of confidence."

When you get an altered body image it's a big problem - for men as well as women

Emma Stanton, nurse oncology manager

The beauty parlour and the make-up sessions are the work of cosmetics industry charity Look Good Feel Better, which has been operating in many UK hospitals for about 10 years.

Mrs Morgan, diagnosed with acute myloid leukaemia at the end of May, firmly believes that taking care of her appearance has helped her maintain a positive outlook.

The 37-year-old has scars on her chest from biopsies and the Hickman lines used to administer the chemotherapy, and has shaved her head and covered it with a wig.

'Day out'

"Otherwise you sit there waiting for it to fall out, and it just gets everywhere," she says.

She lives in Great Hallingbury in Hertfordshire with her 12-year-old daughter and nine-year-son, and says it's "nice for the children to see you making an effort".

Mrs Morgan attended a two-hour make-up session in the new beauty parlour - a former seminar room - with about 20 other women.

"We were just having a giggle really. The bandanas started coming off, and the wigs. It was like a day out."

The beauty parlour before its makeover

Oncology nurse manager Emma Stanton says even though many cancer treatments involve drastic hair loss, problems such as dry skin and immense tiredness are common.

She has no doubt patients are given "support and a psychological boost" by the sessions.

"They meet patients having similar treatment, going through the same feelings about their body image.

"When you get an altered body image it's a big problem - for men as well as women," she said.

Look Good Feel Better's executive director Ann Harvey says although beauty sessions are offered to men in the US, there are no such plans to do so here.

Yet she acknowledges the benefits they bring are universal.

"If patients are taking care of themselves, they're thinking positively."

As Mrs Morgan puts it: "There's not much nice about the illness. After the session, you think, 'I did something for me today'."