The Covid-19 pandemic drew attention to the value of being outdoors for mental and physical health. It also highlighted the inequality of access to green space for many communities. Access to nature and green space has been shown to lead to increased contact with others, a greater sense of community, as well as improved cognitive function, mental health, physical activity, and sleep.
The NHS is one of the largest public landowners in the UK, and as such has an opportunity to support health and wellbeing through its use of land and estates, particularly for people living in urban or more deprived areas where access to green spaces and nature can be scarce. Research by NHS Property Services revealed how small changes to NHS estates can widen access to community spaces, turning vacant spaces into hubs that could then be used by system partners to support patients being referred for social prescribing.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has a wide array of green spaces attached to its multiple sites across the county. Its Green Hub has collated information about how these spaces are being used to help improve access to community gardens for patients and communities to support health and wellbeing.
Case study
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has a large geographical footprint and diverse estate portfolio, and has set out to maximise its use of these resources to develop green spaces appropriate for different clinical groups.
The Green Hub is a resource created by the trust to support patients, staff and the public to spend more time in green space, in recognition of the physical and mental health benefits this brings. The hub brings together information about green spaces across the trust's footprint and maps how they are used. For example, an unused space within hospital grounds was transformed into a community garden that all services on site have access to, for both staff and patient use. These gardens are used for a number of activities including yoga, growing food, and mindfulness.
The Green Hub also aims to connect people to nature-based activities and green groups, projects and schemes in their local community to support health and wellbeing.
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire was also chosen as one of seven government green social prescribing test and learn sites to run a pilot nature-based programme. As part of this, the trust has collaborated with partners across the system to expand access to green spaces for local people. Ownership of the programme sits with Nottinghamshire community voluntary services, with the focus on greater use of resources and to support providers already operating in the community to offer more for people experiencing mental health issues. The pilot is now in its second year.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare's role is to represent wider mental health services and ensure the trust's health professionals are linked in and engaged with the programme and embedding green social prescribing within clinical pathways.
Researchers from Sheffield Hallam University are evaluating the programme by measuring the impact on someone's wellbeing, mood, experience of, and access to, the outdoors. Early findings on individual outcomes have been positive, and the evaluation is now looking to measure longer-term outcomes, such as how often people are accessing health services.