Three friends arrive for a spa day. They have massages booked, lunch waiting afterwards and, for one afternoon at least, something other than hospital appointments to think about. Then one of them mentions she’s undergoing cancer treatment. She’s told she can’t have her massage.
“It’s something we’ve seen happen again and again,” says Sue Harmsworth, the founder of globally recognized skincare brand ESPA. “People were looking forward to having a treat that wasn’t medical, then they were being told they couldn’t be treated.”
A survey in July by the UK Spa Association found that while 49 percent of spas and salons now regularly offer cancer-adapted treatments and a further 24 percent do so on request, more than a quarter are continuing to turn away guests altogether. Almost as many aren’t actively advertising the service.
For Harmsworth, it’s a problem she’s spent the past decade trying to solve. After selling ESPA, she established Touch for Cancer and its accrediting body, the Standards Authority for Touch in Cancer Care (SATCC).
What Harmsworth has found since setting up the charity is that therapists weren’t refusing guests because they lacked compassion, but because nobody had ever taught them what was safe. “The therapists are naturally caring people, but if they haven’t been trained, they’re understandably nervous,” she says. “But once they’ve got the knowledge, they become so much more confident.” That confidence, she believes, is becoming one of the hallmarks of a truly world-class spa.
Such spas are happy to invest in specialist training that allows therapists to adapt almost any treatment around the person in front of them. A therapist trained in oncology massage understands how to work around surgical scars, PICC lines, ports, and stomas, when pressure should be adjusted, and why guidance around heat therapies isn’t as straightforward as it once seemed. Rather than defaulting to “no,” they know how to safely tailor an existing massage or facial without compromising the experience.
“My preference is always that therapists can tailor-make a treatment one hundred percent for the individual,” says Harmsworth. “It’s much more personalized.”
Harmsworth estimates that SATCC has now trained more than 600 spas across the UK and Ireland, and thousands of individual therapists. Among the properties she highlights are Heckfield Place, Gleneagles, Goodwood Hotel, Powerscourt Estate in Ireland, Beaverbrook’s Coach House Spa, and the Dorchester Collection, all of which have invested in specialist therapist education.
While SATCC has focused on establishing standards in the UK and Ireland, Harmsworth hopes the model will eventually expand internationally. The challenge, she explains, comes as oncology wellness looks different from country to country. In the US, whilst oncology massages are much more established and offered widely than in the UK, regulation can vary between states and there is no consistent national standard. “That’s why we focused on the UK and Ireland first,” she says. “We needed to get the model right before taking it worldwide.”
Some hotels worth noting are Rocco Forte Hotels in the UK and Italy, which have embraced oncology wellness through a partnership with Irene Forte Skincare. Further afield, Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita and Four Seasons Bali Beach Resort in Jimbaran Bay are also approved by SATCC. Product houses including Wildsmith, ishga, and Made for Life have created their own oncology protocols to ensure therapists can deliver treatments safely and confidently, and offer products for patients to use at home.
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For guests, there are no noticeably clinical treatment rooms or dramatically different rituals, but it’s the subtle difference that matters, like the conversations that take place before a treatment begins and the confidence with which therapists respond to individual needs. Someone recovering from breast cancer may need different positioning after surgery. A guest with lymph node removal may need pressure adjusted or certain areas avoided. Others may need guidance on whether thermal experiences are appropriate for them. The experience remains luxurious, but it is also thoughtfully adapted.
Harmsworth believes one of the industry’s biggest obstacles remains misinformation. “People are still being taught not to touch anybody with cancer,” she says. “That’s simply not true.”
Instead, she encourages travelers to look beyond a spa’s facilities and ask about therapist training before booking. Accreditation matters, but so does ensuring an oncology-trained therapist will actually be available during a stay, particularly at smaller properties where only part of the team may have completed specialist training.
Today’s guests expect spas to cater to individual health needs, whether that’s pregnancy, menopause or post-operative recovery. Cancer, Harmsworth argues, should be no different.
