A specialist cancer hospital for Oxford will fight Britain's biggest killer with art as well as science.

"Beauty that soothes the spirit can help the body," will be the pioneering mantra of the £80m Oxford Cancer Centre, to be built on the site of the demolished Ritchie Russell House in the grounds of the Churchill Hospital, in Old Road, Headington.

Work is due to start next year.

Project manager Vickie Lamb said the concept had been imported from America by the architects.

She said: "The whole idea is that when patients arrive at the centre, they take one look and say to themselves: 'I know I'm going to be made better here'.

"This has been shown in America to be such an important part of healing -- giving people the feel-good factor when they're at their lowest ebb. Oxford will now lead the way in Britain."

The centre, approved by Oxford City Council's strategic development control committee this week, will increase the annual provision of cancer treatment in the region by 16,000 patients.

The centre will bring more specialist staff and state-of-the-art design and equipment to Oxford and will increase the number of beds for cancer patients within the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust by 110. There will also be two extra operating theatres.

Diagnostic examinations are expected to be running at 76,000 a year by 2006, with breast screenings reaching 63,000.

Currently, cancer care is provided by 282 staff at the Churchill. That number will more than double by the time the centre opens late in 2006, with a further 306 cancer care specialists bringing the total to 588.

City councillors were told that art could be a "powerful weapon" in the battle against disease, even cancer.