NHS Forest conference 2023 – Session 3 – Using the NHS green estate for health and wellbeing
In this session we turn to accessibility and the use of the green estate for health and wellbeing.
We consider how to design spaces in an inclusive way; learn from experiences outside the health sector; and hear from those working on hospital sites about how they have ensured their trees and woodlands can be utilised as a healthcare asset.
Chair: Helen Townsend, Forestry Commission.
Speakers include:
Gordon Malcolm, Dementia Adventure
Ben Whittaker, CSH’s Green Walking initiative
Carole Longden, Forest of Hearts
Tim Braund, Forestry England
Nick White, CSH’s Liverpool Nature Recovery Ranger
Good afternoon, everyone. And I see people still streaming in, but we will make a start as we’re just after 2:00. So a very warm welcome to session three of the NHS Forest conference 2023 and very warm welcome back to anyone who’s been with us for the first two sessions this morning and welcome
To anyone who’s just joining us for this afternoon session. So we’re about to go into session three, which is all about using the NHS Green Estate for health and wellbeing. And before we dive into that, I’m just going to very quickly go housekeeping again, just for any new people
Who have just joined us, a quick reminder that everyone else, so that all of our presentations will be recorded and made available on our website after the conference is finished. And so you’ll be able to go back and have a look at any recordings and everyone’s cameras and microphones are switched off
As this is a webinar format but we would love for you to engage with each other and participate with their panelists as well. So please do make use of the chat box and also the Q&A box as well. And just to briefly explain those things.
So if you go to the chat box, make sure and if you want to take it, send a message to everyone. Make sure that that question above the chat box as everyone and you can ask questions or stop discussion
And maybe talk a bit about who you are and why you’ve joined us today. But if you have any specific questions for the panelists, then do use the Q&A box and our chat for the session will be monitoring that Q&A session. And I’m asking the panelists questions during the Q&A session.
You can thumbs up other people’s questions. So if there are any questions that you particularly like sound of, make sure you come up and it will help Helen to kind of manage this questions if you’d like. See subtitles. You can turn on close captions by clicking the CC
Show captions button as you can see on the screen there, and that will automatically generate subtitles so that you can follow along that way. So without any further editing, I’m going to hand over to our chair for the next session. Helen Townsend, over to you. Helen. Thanks, Sarah. Welcome everybody. Welcome back.
I hope you had a good session this morning. One of the things I did want to to, to, to talk about now was that we’ve done the play shaping. We’ve learned about how to plant trees. We’ve got the go ahead. We have made these places. We have these places at a disposal.
This session is going to talk about how we make the most of those places, how we engage and facilitate our audiences, be them volunteers or be them participants, clients, whatever you anyway you want to call them. But we’re all about the people in this session.
We’ve done the place shaping, so just let you know who I am. I’m the Forestry Commission policy lead for people, landscape and historic environment, which is all about people. So hence why I think I’ve been asked to chair this session. I’ve been involved with the NHS forest since conception.
I know I don’t look that old, but I have been around for a while and Forestry Commission has been very supportive of NHS Forest and I think one of the beauties of NHS Forest, which is what we’ll explore in a bit, is it isn’t just about pie shaping, it is about people agenda
And it is about now engaging people, using people to bring people to the spaces that we’ve created, to the trees that we’ve planted. So that’s what this session is going to be about. So I’ll, I’ll lead into our kind of first speaker after speaker is Gordon Malcolm. He works for dementia adventure.
Gordon has had a varied background for in education, education, graduate and has been working in the field for a long time. He’s passionate about training and skills acquisition and I think his presentation will really focus on why we need knowledge exchange and why we need to build our skills in this area.
So over to you, Gordon. Thank you very much. I’m just going to share my presentation with you. We so I’m here today to talk to you about a project funded by the Trees Call to Action Fund involving creating two new and exciting training courses for the NHS
To states around thinking about inclusion, re enablement and discharge. But first, let me tell you a little bit more about dementia adventure and what we do and why we have been chosen to deliver this project. So dementia event and dementia adventure, we think differently about dementia.
We believe that with the right support, everybody living with dementia can get outdoors, experience the wellbeing, benefits of connecting with nature and enjoying a more active and fulfilled life. We do that through the creation of supported holidays and that we run for people living with dementia and somebody
They know well, so their husband, wife, son, daughter or a loved one. We also provide training, free training for family and friends, but we also do professional training and work with a range of organizations to enable them to become more dementia accessible.
We’re the only charity solely focusing on dementia and nature and dementia. Adventure is the sector leader in organize in working with organizations that whether that be blue, green spaces, health, all care sector organizations. But why do we do that? Because there are. Currently over. 900,000 people living with dementia in the UK,
And this number is likely to rise to over 1.6 million by 2040. So at Dementia Adventure, we have a great track record of working with a range of professionals and in our 14 years history as a charity, we work with 17 over 17,000 professionals
Providing tailor made training packages for a whole variety of organizations such as in the medical and medical and Care Professionals, Green and Blue Spaces, as I said before, but also local authorities and charities. We’ve recently had the privilege of working with the National Trust
By providing training and support to enable them to run a trial, new service, a dementia support service within one of its property settings. And we will then also commission to evaluate this two year pilot and then to create a toolkit. So the learning from that pilot can be rolled out
In five of our premises across the Trust. We also participate in research. So everything that we do is grounded in the latest research about supporting people in dementia. And we’re currently in a research project at the moment with Southampton University and several Partners and Gardens.
We train health care professionals to provide in Essex and of what we’ve a range of care providers and care home organizations, including Abbeyfield and MHRA. So I know we’re a dementia charity, and so you might be thinking, well, is the work and is the training applicable to me?
But, but we’re going to say yes because whilst we work and we support people living with dementia, as Wendy Mitchell says here on this call on the screen, when you get it right for people living with dementia, you get it right for so many other groups of people. Why is that?
Well, it’s because people living with dementia struggle with a range of medical conditions. And so those conditions are shared by many of the clients that you will be working with. So we actually say that, yes, our training is applicable for people with other medical conditions too, because dementia covers
Cognitive impairment, sensory sensitivity, sensory impairment, mental health difficulties and communication difficulties. Now Wendy Mitchell is used to work for the NHS. She’s now an ambassador and a passionate advocate for promoting living well with dementia. And so it’s really key that if you attend the training that we’re running,
It will be of benefit to other client critics as well. So why is connecting with Woods and Woodland so important? Well, actually. There’s. Been a wealth of research about the physiologic impact that it has on changing the brain’s chemistry. So Miles Richardson is a professor in the University of Derby.
He wrote a book, Reflection Fixing Our Broken Relationship with Nature, and he cites a range of research that’s been undertaken to look at how the connection with woods and woodlands highly impacts our physiological body. So what did it do? Well, he also talked about this piece of research that was undertaken in Japan.
Where people were. Blindfolded, given exposure, and asked to touch with the plants that had different materials, such as bark tiles, stainless steel and untreated oak just for 90 seconds. And they measured the brain activity and the changes that occurred. And it was quite amazing that just within those 90 seconds
That actually by touching wood and we’re talking a natural piece of oak, it had a calming effect, a relaxation effect, and evoked feelings of contentment in those participants in that research. So it’s absolutely key that connecting with nature has a range of positive impacts on all of us.
So at this point, we’re going to hear from a gentleman called Chris. He’s living with dementia and he’s with his wife, Jane, because it’s dementia adventure. When we produce training, it always has the lived experiences of people and how what is important to them and how things make them feel.
So let’s hear from Chris. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and mixed dementia in his mid fifties, and he’s going to discuss and explain to us about his connection with nature how important that is to him. And I. I sometimes grow up in both. Sorry, it’s like a technical hitch.
I got to sit down and have a few tears on my own. I’m not going to get disturbed. I’m not going to be embarrassed. And it’s something I do now and again. The other day I was due to the maybe due to going on a hedgehog came out and immediately I was distracted
From my anxiety, my stress, my depression. I didn’t have dementia. I didn’t have any problems at all. And that’s what nature does for infrastructure is beautiful. It doesn’t ask anything of you, it just displays it. Something and a bond is there for our appreciation.
He was just in the moment, just him and this hedgehog just walking past. Just was it two feet? Just two feet away from him? Yeah. Yeah. And it just got over this life and I just sat there and I watched him going backwards and forwards
And even the cat from across the cat was watching it as well. He’s obviously had feelings for the hedgehog oxygen chemistry, but even the cat was watching his. I now go out and I can look through these things now and it’s it’s beautiful. It takes there is no you don’t say
No you don’t succeed. You just observe and there’s no there’s no pressure. Pressure. There’s no pressure. It’s just that future pressure and distract you and you are normal again. You know, you’re not that person with dementia. You don’t have any problems at all. And I think that goes for any, anyone and everyone.
So I think you’ll agree that Chris summarizes beautifully how important, when living with dementia, that connection with nature is feeling normal again, because actually living with dementia is exhausting. And to be outdoors in nature and having nature based experiences is incredibly soothing. So research undertaken by dementia, adventure,
Natural England identified there are a range of health and wellbeing benefits. We know getting outdoors is good for everyone, but this was specifically involving people living with dementia. On the right hand side, you can see that it improves, it reduces, as Chris described, depression, stress and anxiety,
But also it actually connects to our emotional memories because we have in our brain a part of the brain called the amygdala, where we store emotional memories. And that’s less affected by dementia. And just as the way that you may have seen on programs on the television
About music connecting with people’s brain and dementia, with nature and nature experiences connect to those memorable experiences in regular. So it helps with our attention, it helps with stimulating memory and reminiscence. It also stimulates outside of an expression. But there are other health and wellbeing benefits
Supporting improvements in appetite, sleeping, a sense of belonging and that general well-being. And you might think, how long do you have to be outdoors in nature to receive these health and wellbeing benefits? Well, actually it’s only a small amount of time, just 10 minutes. So it’s not about a giant adventure.
Small exposure can make a real difference. So we did a research program with a care chain and actually they called it their Breath of Fresh Air program and the impact on its residents was quite phenomenal. So the improvements to residents moderate loneliness went down from 77% to 11%.
After undertaking nature based experiences, time outside decreased falls by 10% in the hope those getting seven or more hours of sleep increased from 55 to 88%. Residents who rated their appetite as good rose from 66 to 100% and 33% of residents who said their mood was good before the program.
That rose to 66% after. So as you can see, the impact of our training and nature of this experience is profound because we also get benefits from connecting with things like the soil. This connection with the soil is research that identifies that it also releases serotonin.
Serotonin in our brain is a happy hormone. It helps to make us feel good because there are natural bacteria in the soil which actually stimulate the release of serotonin. So it’s like the release of a natural antidepressant. It also strengthens our immune system
And also it provides us with that general sense of well-being. So the nature experiences that we’ll be looking at in our programs will not only be with contacting with nature, but actually getting in touch with it, touching the soil, too, with growing activities, if that’s appropriate to you in your setting
At an intervention. We also know that dementia can affect the senses so that we ensure that has programs in our nature experience are multi-sensory. Now getting outdoors in nature is naturally multi-sensory is as soon as you’re stepping outside, you’re involving increased coordination of your vision,
Your hearing is being stimulated, smell, motor control and also your taste. If we’re going foraging, but also your bodily awareness. So researchers identified that people who keep their brain active, then they can slow the progression of the disease of dementia. So by going outdoors and having nature, nature experiences, that naturally is a
Multi-sensory experience that stimulates all these parts of the brain. It also stimulates language because when these parts of the brains are firing, communication is also supported. So in the NHS, over 40% of older people in hospital are living with dementia. This research was undertaken by three health partnerships across the country
In North London, in Birmingham and Solihull and in West Yorkshire. It identified that the length of stay is twice that of people without dementia that are called a sorry of the patients do not need to be in hospital and they account for a quarter of the delayed discharges, 10% of all readmissions
Within NHS properties were within 30 days. So people in the dementia accounted for 10% readmissions, but also people who were admitted from home. They found that the longer people stay in hospital, the worse it affects their damaged symptoms and their physical health. And patients also are twice as likely to fall in hospital,
An event which then will quadruple their length of stay. So that’s why at dementia events we have created this innovative training that we hope you will join. The training is designed to help you gain awareness of the benefits of the nature and being outdoors
To learn about the practical steps of planning outdoor experiences and improving your understanding of making things multi-sensory, you’re going to learn practical ways to connect and engage with the person dealing with dementia. But also, most importantly, you’re going to get a range of tools,
Templates, lots of resources that are going to support you in organizing and running your own experiences. Because at Dementia adventure, we don’t just want to give you the theory and give you the science and the research behind it. We want to give you free tools, templates and things that you can use
To practically start activities and running accessible opportunities in your particular settings. So the sessions are split up into two session. One is going to focus on sensory connection and nature experiences, and that was planned for Tuesday, the 29th of March,
And it’s a three hour session and that’s going to be looking at not only the research behind why connecting in nature with, say, so important, but also all of the types of activities you might want to look at running, but also looking at how to positively risk manage.
When you’re working with people in dementia. Session two is nature experiences taking those next steps. We’d like you to come back to talk about what you’ve been trying, but then to look at sharing that experience, but also exploring the barriers to looking at other resources so that training is available now on Eventbrite
And hopefully the link is going to be put in the chat function. So you can actually click on the link and actually put yourself a place. It costs £15 and the money will go to natural NHS Forest Fund. If you need any more information from me, please get in contact.
It’s Gordon at Dimension Adventure Dot Co.uk Or look at our website at Dimension Adventure dot org. Thank you very much. That was super awesome. Thank you. And what’s kind of moving is some of the I know they told me
Not to get distracted by the charts, but I do get started by the chat. There’s some lovely kind of firsthand personal experiences that have been shared, and so it feels that it’s kind of, you know, everybody knows this, everybody’s experience, this.
But, you know, when we’ve got the offer of that kind of training opportunity, I think everybody should make the most of that. So thank you very much for that. So don’t forget to put your questions if you have any to Gordon,
In the Q&A, and we’ll come back to those in the panel session in a little bit. But I’d like to introduce our next speaker, who is Ben Whittaker. Ben is an occupational therapist by training and has various accolades to his name in terms of working with a wide variety of organizations.
But this one, I was particularly impressed with. Ben. It says you were the initial project lead for the World Federation of Occupational Therapy Sustainability Working Group, and you became one of the first chief Sustainable systems and Ability officers, clinical fellows at Greener
NHS working with the Office of the and that’s the battle against the acronym. Perhaps you can tell me a bit more about that. But the one thing Ben did want to me to let you know about was that he’s a very keen ukulele player,
So he’s a real person with a real passion for ukulele. So I’m going to hand over to Ben now to talk about the Center for Sustainable Health Cares Initiative, about Green Walking. Thank you very much. I’m Ben from Self Sustainable Healthcare and I’m the Sustainable Healthcare Delivery Lead.
And the acronym is AHP Leeds, which is allied Health Professions. My background as a mental health occupational therapist, one of the 14 Allied Health professions. And today I’m going to be talking about CCH is green working in mental health recovery initiatives. I work
With screen So there is a QR code in the bottom right on the screen, which will take you through to our new green walking web pages and link through to our green walking guides, which I’ll be speaking about in more depth. So the Green Book Human Health Recovery Initiative, and the idea
To focus on developing green working groups for psychiatric inpatients. And this is a photo from the back cover of The Green Walking Guide. There are many issues with being on a psychiatric ward, being an inpatient, including having reduced access to therapeutic activities, having limited opportunities to support physical health and activity
That being sometimes unconsidered and excessive use as a mental health act which can lead to excessive detention and lack of supported leave. And for inpatients, often green space access can be overlooked or can be one of the first things that falls off the list if there is short staffing despite its value
Result a lot today, lots of great talks about the value of accessing green spaces and supporting mental health, wellbeing and recovery. And also people can have a difficulties with the transition between inpatient and community service. When the discharged green walking groups can address some of the issues in each of these problem areas.
But simply green walking is about moving through natural space, and green walking groups can provide respite and healing to people receiving inpatient psychiatric care through walking together in nature. These walks are easy to establish, they’re safe a cheap, and they build on the very significant existing body of evidence.
We’ve had lost about today that has established the health and wellbeing benefits of accessing green spaces and walking. This goes back to an age old knowledge about green spaces being integral to mental health, wellbeing and recovery. And as we move towards more of a medicalized approach to dealing with mental health issues,
It feels that some of that age old knowledge has been lost. So we we want to bring together the best of the current medical approach and bring reintegrate green spaces as a core part of mental health, wellbeing and recovery. So another needs in mental health services.
It’s a shift towards sustainable and holistic models of care. And in order to have sustainable health care, we need to have the triple win of protecting the planet, improving health and saving money. These are also referred to as the triple bottom line
Of meeting the environmental agenda, the social agenda and the economic agenda. And these quotes will come from the Green Walking Guide Show how the Green Walking Initiative meets all three of these things. And it’s worth noting that the social benefits aren’t just for service users. Staff also have great benefit
From green walking, and it’s it’s also felt on the ward that the benefit that the people who go out on the walk have they then bring that back to the ward. And then there’s a ripple effect with the benefit of the walking group
To other people in the world who didn’t even go on to walk. So the most important principle of sustainable clinical practice is preventative health care, and this is included in the financial elements at the bottom here. When we’re talking about green walking, contributing to patients recovery and potentially preventing future mental health issues.
This also if we can prevent ongoing mental health issues, it obviously has social benefits and environmental benefits as well in terms of reduction of carbon and ongoing health interventions. Sustainable health care set up green walking in 2018 with funding from the network, social change teams were recruited across these eight NHS mental
Health trusts, each to run a pilot scheme with new green working groups. A psychologist, psychiatrist Jacob Christian Roski, led the Green Walking Initiative then. And there are a wealth of benefits from these groups, which became apparent very quickly. I’m going to be talking a bit more about what happened in Kent,
But just from day one, pilot group come on board. It then spread very quickly across forward with all forwards that were met by hospital, having a green working group. So these wealth of benefits and first hand knowledge from the brain based insights informed the writing
Of this guide Green walking and mental health recovery. And when this was published in its launch in May 2020, it was endorsed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, and the Royal College of Medicine. There’s a QR code again in the bottom of 100 screen,
Or if you search for CCH and Green walking, you will come to the web pages about this graphic artist freely downloadable. This is an overview of the contents in the Green Walking Guide, and we’ve heard a lot about the evidence today about why this is important.
There was a lot of learning from the Green Beacon sites, which then informed the guidelines on how to set up walk ons. There are quotes throughout the guide and I will let you have a look at some of these and we’ll say the third quite down
From Adrian James, who at the time of the guide was launched was the presence of psychiatrists and there was a piece in the newspaper about the Green Walking Guide where he was interviewed and said he would like to see this rolled out across all psychiatric inpatient settings across the UK. So Julie Delahaye
On the left here, I think this is another 80. I’m in the picture too. They as I said, that green walking rolled out across all wards in the hospital very quickly and they had a photographer come and take some photos from that group, which I’m going to play now. I think.
I presume this might be a little bit floaty, but I’m going to show you some lovely photos from there. We can record now some very lovely moments, and I appreciate that moment. Same as to actually be able to leave a board environment
Which can be very intense and experience that can be very profound. And the this is a slide from a presentation Julie did about this. And these are some of her notes in that quoting Julie. We didn’t only choose informal patients, but saw an opportunity to take positive risks with patients
Detained under the Mental Health Act. And besides the usual benefits you would expect increase in stamina or confidence. And of creative compensation, peer support, Julie said. Nature has its own power of healing. When you enter the woods, you stop and are transfixed by its beauty.
The chatter in your head stops, tension falls through the shoulders and the breath takes a more relaxed pace. The person behind the illness is revealed. We see the patient as a person and they say, You see us as people too. It’s because we spend more time with them in a different environment.
We just enable them. Well, they become the best that they can be and bring. Walking groups have now spread out across Kent and Medway, but there are other hospitals as well, and there’s a lot of good work Julie’s done. Julie comes to a peer support
Network and group that I’ll have details for at the end. So if anybody is interested in finding out more about this, we have a group tomorrow lunchtime after the Green Walking Guide came out. It wasn’t just people who had been working groups before, but then expanded across the hospital. This is parliamentary
Hearings, the Leadership Meals, Hostel Partnership, NHS Foundation, Trust, and after reading the Green Walking Guide, Claire looked to adapt. Her article about groups of the Green Walking became a stand alone intervention, and they developed group protocol to specify goals and format and set a standard for all boards.
If you would facilitate a weekly green walking group, They developed leaflets such as this with maps and information of local green walking routes and they also made improvements to their ward based group, green Spaces and Gardens, so that patients in patients who were unable to leave
The ward could still access green spaces, so be close to trees and could still get the benefits. And again, lots of positive feedback. Some people who were just able to be out and be in these spaces and had lots of health benefits for them. The last example I’m going to give
You is from Sam’s Hospital in Barnet and Chiltern Haringey Mental Health Trust, and this hospital has a really old woodland site where there are many rare and exotic trees found across the whole of the hospital site, some nearly 100 year old and the friends of Sunderland’s Green Spaces or Stags, is a group
That was launched during Mental Health Awareness Week in 2021, and it helps to have the green spaces of some. They are looking to conserve and enhance the green spaces into the future through long term health management. So Camilla Cox, who can be seen planting trees
In the bottom left here she is the oxygen therapy lead. They got 20 trees from NHS Forest and planted them in different locations across the site, some in and around the ancient woodlands, some others in more open areas where they hope to develop more gardening activity. And they created enthusiasm.
So more gardening activities on the hospital site. And she said it was part of a growing interest in the green spaces that they have available to look at the whole scheme. So from this we can see there’s great variety in the ways that we can access trees, woodlands, green spaces.
But the more that we can make the most of growing the NHS forest or mental health sites, the more green more can opportunities there will be so people and the more it will help support their mental health, recovery and wellbeing. So if you’re not aware such sustainable health care, we have 33 specialty
And discipline specific networks, including Green Space for Health and the Mental Health Sustainability Network, which hosts monthly green walking networking group. And we have the HP Allied Health Trust and Sustainability Network. We have a networking event with them tonight. There are lots of networking events with networks, so if you
Might be interested in that tonight, Steve, please have a look on the network. All the networks are free. There’s no paywalls or the resources or more free to access and lots of great resources and information on there and you can link up with other people.
And if you are interested in coming forward tomorrow, there is a QR code or you can find tickets for this event for free on tickets. Hello. This is peer support for anybody wanting to start green Working Group, wanting to expand their Green working group.
And on our website we do have guidance for individuals who would like to use the Green Walking Guide for organizations, hospitals that might like green walking across their site and for NHS trusts or access who might like to expand green walking across the whole trust.
It’s Sussex Partnership are exploring and there are ways that we can support you without self-sustainable health care. So if you’re interested in that too, please get in touch. This is my on my favorite green groups, Castle Hill Nature Reserve, just about Bryson. I try and get that most days. My emails just
Under three have now came out this morning. We all need green spaces for mental health. Thank you. You’re again super staff and incredibly inspiring. What I do love is this this again this I know I’m being distracted by it, but the chat people are answering questions from other people
In terms of evidence and experience. And you know, I keep asking this question about how people are getting their information and how they’re networking. So really good plug for the Center for Sustainable Health Care Networks that will provide that support to people and allow people to network
And share good ideas and learn from each other. Quite ironic, really, that the 2020 which publication date when we all kind of really, really understood the benefits of for mental health from lockdown of getting outside and walking.
So I think the time is it’s good timing and the time is right at the moment to kind of really try and embed these things because I think people for the first time really understand what it is when you don’t have those things or aren’t able to access green space.
So thank you very much for that. Our next speaker is the I’m going to call her the queen of hearts. Carol Longden is a the founder and facilitator of the Forest of Hearts Project. What a great name. So hence why I’m kind of going to referred to her as the queen of hearts.
Carol says she’s a jack of all trades, but she’s obviously a very passionate individual that has worked in Warwickshire and has a really good experience of working on practical projects to improve health and wellbeing. So over to you, Carol. Thanks, Helen. The Queen of health says I’ll use that. Hi, everybody.
I will share my screen now, hopefully. Yep. So good. Okay, so this Helen said, I’m the founder of Forest of Hearts. We’re a tiny little charity in Stratford upon Avon, and I set it up in 2015 after my brother died of measles glioma.
And as he was dying, it just seemed to both of us the importance of being outside and fresh. And so I was lucky enough to be able to set this up after that sad occurrence. I’m a bit of a tree hugger from Olden,
But not many trees in Oldham where there used to be 17 mill chimneys, and I would sets my bedroom window. And so clearly the valley of the trees and green space has been a set of times before. Right. So we with a visit, a conference at Stratford Hospital in the room
Where the lights are on, the thought, my goodness, You know that patch of lawn that needs the garden and the effect of the AMA, who was the head of the wellbeing center there and said, you know, we put a garden there.
They said, Yeah, but we’re going to build a car park in five years time. So it’s only going to be temporary. Well, we’ll have that. So that’s okay. So we looked at what we could do and then we thought, Well, if we’re going to do that,
Then it would be helpful to have some people benefit from it. And we set up little social prescribing projects which had these objectives. So we were really clear about what we wanted to do with this patch of lawn. And essentially we then went about recruiting people to join our green therapy group
And we didn’t have any money. So we had to get some corporate sponsorship with a, we’ll go to a small fund and see if they’ll give us a garden as a show garden, which was absolutely brilliant because they did. So that was the focal point for our volunteers
To say, Look, I’m going to put on a show garden, what’s involved. And just the process of doing that was fantastic. Everybody enjoyed it. Got to make love to my heroes. So that was an added bonus. These are added bonus was we met from Phil from Construction.
Bam. Like, we work with a lot of corporate volunteers and a lot of corporate companies are very keen to help do things that give back to the environment and also particularly if it’s linked to other kind of health benefits and mental health benefits and Phil got his team of apprentices.
So it was their first two weeks on the job and there were about six of them. And their first job was to construct 12 raised beds and that’s what they did. And then they helped us recruit some COBRA teams to pay to come about and so did the team events
And got the whole thing planted in the day. So that was a bonus. And so we now have an edible garden and the garden is used for grown veg schools, a hospital wellbeing café and unbeknownst to us, the raised beds two meters apart. So during lockdown, it’s absolutely brilliant that those seats are
At the moment people are standing in them, that they are actually seats now and were a place where stuff came out and enjoyed the lunch. And so the Edible Garden was kind of the staff for Stratford upon Avon Hospital and we’ve used a model of Fruit Tree Girls
Which none of those regardless as we are now, but we know all the parties at the start. So we use a concept of tree girls which in those small bed, those beds, two and a half meters by one meter, we have a fruit tree.
What we learned about that was put in all the rootstock that doesn’t grow very big. So we’ve got some that need to come out because the root starts too big. And then under planting, that was in this case rose regrowth, which has delicious rose hips. You can eat climate insertions
You can then think those as well while garlic. So so the fruit tree guild concept is well that we’ve carried on. So we’ve done the gardens at Warwick Hospital and Leamington Rehab hospital and it’s a nice concept because you kind of get an instant garden look in a small space,
In a short space of time. So we, we also look at companion plants in so that they each of the plants supports the plant next to it, next to it, so that we’re trying to reduce the amounts of weeding that it takes the amount watering that it takes
So that the garden’s a fairly hardy and robust even in the dry weather that we had last year. So learning about the plants has been good and the we now have a process created in green spaces which starts with a what to the staff basically.
And then looking at what can we get funded. So we’ve we’ve been we haven’t had any NHS funding but we’re pretty good at being able to draw in funds from other organizations and grants and so on which can kickstart them. So let’s say, I mean, I’ll go into the politics of it.
We should be funding this stuff. They go, So that’s kind of the process that we use. And we always start with the designs by asking people what they want and knowing whether it’s going to be a secluded place for people to come and sit and have their lunch. Is it for the staff?
Is it’s invitations? Is it for the visitors? Is it for everybody? And then looking at maximizing the spaces available, we look at stratford’s the is the patch of land at the back of the carpark. And on the left hand side of this design you’ll see with sort of a polytunnel, rather a
A company that grows salad veg for the public to remove resin in two days, which is marvelous. So that now is used as a space. The groups that come to it and we the reason that we’re doing these spaces is partly to build biodiversity, but also to boost mental health and wellbeing.
And we have a green therapy group that meets on a Tuesday and Friday, and it’s a group made up of they have about a dozen regular people, some young people with learning difficulties, people with mental health difficulties. People are referred from the Arts center next door
And also people that just want to come and give back just to get out of the house. So the weekly therapy sessions are a couple of hours long and we use a grow coach and we’ve trained the facilitators and and four of the people that came to us as
People want to support now facilities a lot. One of them is full time employed and we use the model of grow coaching, which is working with people to establish what their goals, what why do they want to be with us, what do they want to get from being in the go in?
And so what the reality is so that we can establish some kind of measure of success so that we know in three months time, if the reality is they haven’t been out of the house for two years, in some cases, you know,
If they come regular late, then that is a massive growth achievement. And for options, we look at what we can possibly do and we signpost as to are organized actions, citizens advice, DWP and so on. And topic is a will. So we kind of engage people in
Determining what they will do about it without our support. So that’s the weekly sessions. The weekly sessions clearly as well maintain the garden. So here’s some of the guys laying out to the bench that’s looking very pleased with themselves. We’ve had loads of growth this year, John.
In the middle of year he’s been helping us because we didn’t know much about veg growing, but we know a bit more about we are working with the marijuana businesses for people that have joined the group. So we run a group recently, bereaved people at the hospice
And we’re working on this concept of absolute genesis, which is helping people to look at what creates health. And we have a program of activities throughout the their insurance of wellness grid gardens. They’ve absolutely delighted. And that’s the great garden guru from the One Square Meter.
They grew beans and courgettes by the dozen peas, you name it, in one square meter. And so we’ve learned to deliver quite a lot of veg in small spaces and small space. James was one of our first volunteers. He’s is now run. I think it’s two half marathons
And he just hadn’t been out of the house at all until they came to us. So he purpose that his goal was to get fit again and that’s what he’s done. But the thing for James as well was giving back to the community. So Mark now is a handyman again.
He lost his confidence, left the Army a carpenter. So people tell us what their skills are. And by the way, it’s like that, but it’s in a good way. I think so, yeah. Mark does a lot of them carpentry work, which is we’re finding that needed in the garden. And then John, he
He lost his wife last year. He was really skeptical about coming apparently to the hospice, but now he loves it and for him it’s kind of the player in his mind. And the great garden. The garden is in a little box. You’ve got these seeds and we do a plan to guide them.
This activity and the photograph that you saw before was one of the great garden square meters. We couldn’t do what we did without working in partnership with the South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust and Karen and I guess sums of my was for the Trust. And it’s interesting because as we’re watering the garden,
We put up some living walls by the carpark and the number of people that’s comments on how beautiful they are and it gets everybody talking to each other, which is what gardening does. Funding. Yeah, I mean we’ve kind of been lucky to be awarded grants, but very lucky to be working with
Corporates and people. So if you can do it again, have got me a little bit of I would say the clear about the purpose, pick the right place, know who you’re going to work with and paying people has been a struggle. But we’re doing it now and we live.
We go out to play, we enjoy it. And finally, these are the little bits that were all those that were born in our owl box, in our five acre nature reserve, which we’re now pursuing. So thanks very much for the opportunity to speak to you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Carol.
You described it as a small project, but boy, is it mighty in terms of impact that was that was lovely. Thank you. I have learned a new word there. Actually. I have heard of Salute saluted Genesis before. So that’s an interesting and you want to make again,
There’s lots of good contacts and good examples in the chat of other people that have worked on similar projects and we’ve got some questions coming in the Q and A, so we’ll be coming back to those in the panel session. So moving on, we’re going to move on to
Tim from now from Forestry England. Forestry England is the part of Forestry Commission that manages the nation’s forests, the public forest, a site, and now we’ve been working on health and wellbeing projects for a long time in the early days when I first joined the commission.
But we’ve been more successful recently in terms of getting kind of bigger funding programs and that’s enabled us to employ people like Tim. And Tim is an expert in his own right. He, he lives by what he talks. He’s a cyclist.
I hear a hockey player and surfs when it’s warm, not when it’s cold. Tim has also worked in a variety of organizations. He’s from a kind of ecological background and governmental background. What national parks have some time on sand dunes? That would be an interesting one to discuss. Another time.
But more but more recently has come into lead the Active Forest program in Forestry England. So moving away from the nature site now, but still looking at kind of health and wellbeing outreach projects, I bet you. Tim Thank you. Helen Nothing, everyone, I’ll just share my screen. Good afternoon.
I’m just going to to talk through the Filtering Forest Pilot project that was part of the Active Forests program that was launched in 2014. And Forestry England is the largest landowner in the country, about 1500 sites. And we intend to think about a destination site that there’s a lot more potential
For getting people involved in the forest sites. And so what we wanted to do was look at the opportunities that we had across the nations forests and identify ways that we could reduce the barriers, participation to help people get into the forests, the health and wellbeing benefits,
Engaging with inactive, sincerely active people as defined by the Chief Medical officer. So people that are doing less than 150 minutes of the activity a week, programs that would deliver health and wellbeing outcomes for the participants and at the time it was when social prescribing was becoming more prevalent and better understood.
How could we as an organization, better align our services and our policies to work alongside and maximize social central partnerships? Then the models that we looked at ranged for across a number of sites in the two Silkwood in the forest sites were attempts.
Chase It’s done on the north east, London, south east Essex border and Chopper Woods in Gateshead near Newcastle. And terms Chase is a site that has 11 individual sites. So what we were doing there was looking at working and coordinating a variety of activity providers
On our sites because we have the asset, we have the amazing spaces. But there were then people who had skills in delivering activities and then we know that there’s this huge potential community of individuals or organizations who would benefit from being active outdoors in the forest of Chartwell, which we hadn’t up to.
The task coordinator was much more involved in managing actual caseload, so doing a bit of coordination, but also doing a bit of delivery, working alongside said party activity this Weston, but very different sets up where everything is the case though,
And the referrals are taken by the team and they directly deliver their sessions. And then something else that we’ve done traditionally across England is through what we call our commission system, but where individual businesses, be they Nordic walkers, yoga instructor is running coaches actually run a business
Using forest estate and we work with them in a more commercial way. So our target audience were people who are physically inactive, people who are not regularly using the forest and people that were wanting to improve the overall maximum physical wellbeing. And one of the things I think again, we all intuitively know,
But historically used to be seen as a byproduct, but actually people that were wanting to reduce social isolation and increase their social connection, sometimes the activity is just the hook and the real benefits come from being with people doing a similar activity or having similar experiences and being able to channel those types.
So the outcomes that we were looking at for the participants were to be more active, physically active, more connected to nature and to the forest, and that that connection was going on beyond just being in the forest, but actually getting down into the university’s
Connectedness to nature and really having that emotional experience, having that sensory experience in the forest more connected to each other. So again, that set seeks the isolation of people from with like minded, looks to similar things and more empowered by maybe riding a bike
For the first time, or rewriting the bike that hadn’t been for 40 years. A sense of achievement, a sense of I can do something to take that back into their lives again to say, Well, maybe I can take on these of the challenges or things that have been apparent to me before, and
Really importantly for the social prescribing program with being more included and actually shaping and contributing to the program itself. So very, very clear on not doing unto people, but those people being part of the process, part of the experience and shaping and reshaping programs and projects as well.
And you get up on site, it’s just a few numbers, so over 6000 visits to check in terms chased during the pilot, 353 individuals that were involved in the program. A lot of checks are in the middle. But basically the the nice one.
Which schools was showing that the target audience we wanted to work with was the target audience that were coming along. So the sorts of programs they were expressing lower self-esteem and happiness with the world. We’ve had the pilot independently evaluated point towards research and all of the participants were saying
The goals that they’d set themselves were being met. So there’s more research that direction reduced social life, social isolation. People are enjoying nature, being part of nature very much contribute to mental wellbeing. And definitely people were more physically active in terms of aligning with
The social prescribing services we’ve tried to get an approach for at the bottom of our what we call our social wellbeing pyramid at the bottom of the pyramid are the walking trails, cycling trails, routes that people can just turn and use for themselves so that everyday use
Without much intervention beyond the physical management of infrastructure. The second bit in the middle is joining others. So that might be a group, it might be a parkrun, it might be volunteers and children in the forest pretty much sits in the green challenge at the top of the pyramid
Where we give people the confidence and skills to then move down the pyramid, to get involved with other activities or to genuinely depend so far Streams England. This is not step into the unknown, but what we want to do as a legacy is give
Local teams, district teams the skills and knowledge to continue to engage with the health sector and with public health. So we’ve got this little seven step toolkit that we’re sharing with our teams so they can gain knowledge and understanding in some over the next few years
Is just to work with those teams to see what’s going on locally so that there is a bridge between what they know as managers and frontline managers. So managers and the local communities and local community needs. So just a few things from learning. We know that referrals come from everywhere and
And it’s not necessarily constrained to link workers. So just being aware of the organization, right, that we did find that mental health support needs, the participants can be quite high. And it’s just being aware that people, the staff team that delivering activities or managing sites may not have the initial training or supports
That they need to deal with people with mental health challenges. Dahlen Direct caseload, really hard work, and that can be very resource intensive, and a lot of our first contact frustrated and staff may not have the skills or knowledge to deal with situations that they come across in the first instance.
So training is something that’s really important in terms of delivery. Relationships take time and I think we all understand that to build successful projects, you need to take the time to go back, to reach out to communities, find out what they’ve interested in, what
Floats your boat, what makes you want to be involved, being really clear about who’s responsible for what, having systems in place so that that can be monitored safely. And we’re really keen on what happens next. At the end of an 8 to 12 week program of introduction to Nordic Walking,
This is something to go on to not just be left hanging and watching the evaluation, but gathering survey information can be a challenge for people that very heavily survey quite often. And some of the questions that we do ask and actually I had a lovely day
And now asking me how I felt yesterday when I felt rubbish. And we can we need to care for not taking people back into that cycle. Longitudinal monitoring is is challenging. How do we over months, years on that with our intervention was the thing that really worked.
It can be done but that can be resource intensive. A lot of the evaluation that we did was not using traditional digital means or surveys, but was smiles. The smiles and using magnetic boards just to get that feeling for how people were. Get involved with the program. And from
The qualitative data and the case studies are really important. I think seeing just a softening of those quotes and stories, the numbers are important, but we could say 100,000 people and say, so what? We say 100 people and we get those. So it’s like this changed my life.
This can be direction, escape and purpose, really, really powerful. So we need to get that balance between the two and some of the barriers, what we would expect. So transport, although transport is a difficult situation, sometimes we, we can challenge communities and they will find innovative ways
Of how they can share transport, commuter transport schemes. So it need not necessarily be a barrier. Some of our sites are quite expensive and that’s our destination sites. But by going to where communities are in some of our community buildings
That are on the the borders of urban centers, they will be free to use spaces. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be traveled to a destination site. So older and vulnerable people having toilets and shelter for those days when it’s not always going to be perfect with a really important, really important
Way of finding the green social prescribing is coming up the agenda bit by bit, but there’s still quite a lot of work to be done to get that accepted in the social prescribing world. And often funding is quite short term. So how do we overcome those, those in the road
To get that legacy in place? So that’s a bit of a whistle stop. I’m really happy to chat to anyone at length and it’s something cannot both for England on this, but I’ll put put my email address in the chat.
So if anybody wants to pick up a bit further, please do give me a shout and we’ve got lots of other learning as well that may be of use. So thank you for your time this afternoon. Thank you. Thank you, Tim.
I’ll bet you didn’t even notice that I dropped out there for a while today. We’ve had a power cut here. So what Spotify find that always happens, doesn’t it, when you don’t want it, It means I’ve lost some of the questions I kind panel I might be referring
Back to you guys to answer some of the questions that you can say, because I can only see the new questions on that. So thank you very much, Tim. So moving on to our last speaker this afternoon, and he’s kind of home grown one of our own because he is
One of the people that we’ve been talking about kind of all day, one of the Nature Recovery Rangers working the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. So we’re going to hear from Nick, who is a countryside manager at heart. He’s an environmentalist. He’s a doer.
He likes get his hands dirty, but is obviously now working with people and using those people to kind of help manage the sites that are close to the areas that we want to get to, but also kind of valuing the the skills that he can pass on to the next generation.
So, Nick, over to you to talk us through it. And you have the last slot, so you lucky person, but you will need to come off mute. I will indeed. Thank you very much, Helen Kristina is going to be putting my presentation on the screen or Massimo. – Or possibly me. Okay.
Thank you. So as Helen says, my name’s Nick, and I work for the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare as a Nature Recovery Ranger. And I’m based at Liverpool, so I sit in with the Liverpool University Hospitals Sustainability team. My role principally is to help increase the biodiversity
Across the three main sites that the trust has and also to involve staff, patients and the local community in connecting with nature. Next slide, please. So the site I’m talking about today is called BlueBell Woods. It’s a mixed 14 hectare woodland dating back over 200 years. Predominant
County species are oak, beech with about two hectares of older willow core. It has significant wildlife value, but it’s no formal designation and it adjoins Aintree Hospital and is part of the larger network at green spaces that follow the course of Fazakerley Brook. So in this morning’s presentation where reference was made
To the site and Fazakerley where they’ve been measuring carbon etc., this is that site. It’s locally known as Bluebell Woods. It’s jointly owned by Liverpool City Council and the trust. And due to budgetary pressure, both organizations only undertake essential work, which means that footpaths are kept clear
And dangerous trees are felled or removed. Other than that, there is no revenue budget for carrying out other work on the site as a result of which we have problems with invasive species such as Sycamore and Rhododendron impacting the biodiversity of the woodland land. Historically, with, as with many other woodlands,
It’s suffered from high levels of anti-social behavior and misuse. It’s in a very urban environment. It’s one of the few natural green spaces available to local people. And as a result of which is very, very highly valued by the local community. Next slide, please. In the early 2000s, Lancashire Wildlife Trust were commissioned
To, engage with the local community and they established a Friends of BlueBell Wood. A theme is going to come up of short term funding is as I speak, and I’ll talk to how we’re trying to address that and stabilize now going forward. The Wildlife Trust Project was funded up until 2014.
Since that time, the hospital has supported the Friends group providing storage space for tools and equipment and assisting with grant applications. Our local community forest, which is the Mersey Forest, produced a 25-year woodland management plan for the site to sort of help guide the the trust and City Council
And how it manages the site going forward. At the same time, the trust started working with CSH and in 2021 appointed its first Nature Recovery Ranger. The ranger worked with the Friends and involved other groups in the care of the woods. But funding for that post ended in March 2022. Next slide, please.
So in the summer of 22, new funding was secured through the Liverpool City region and I was appointed as the new Nature Recovery Ranger in September of that year. So I’ve been working at Liverpool now for just about just over 12 months and I work across the whole of the hospital estate
With one day a week dedicated to BlueBell Woods. So one of the first things that I did when, when I came into post was to meet with the Friends of BlueBell Wood and with them produced a work programme based on delivering the short term objectives of the Mersey Forest Management Plan.
Next slide, please. So in terms of the woodland management objectives, this was essentially looking at how we could increase the biodiversity and reduce the problems associated with antisocial behaviour and misuse of the site. So the photograph shows a large area of Himalayan balsam, which was endemic across the site.
The slide at the photograph at the bottom is flytipping into the brook. That’s actually drug paraphernalia from a cannabis farm. So we have some very high levels of misuse of the site. Thankfully, things have started to improve. So next slide, please. So this is what we’ve achieved
Over the last 12 months in terms of the the work that’s been undertaken largely through volunteers with improved habitats, the removal of self-generated Sycamore and Rhododendron has revealed lots of small, more desirable tree species. So so we see that natural regeneration on the woodland floor.
Flytipping is now swiftly dealt with and the site is kept free of litter. As a consequence, we have more visitors, less anti-social behaviour, and there’s a genuine community pride in the work that’s been undertaken. And the site has been used much more frequently by more people. An example of habitat improvement.
The photographs at the bottom were taken in days of each other. So it’s a pond and the drainage channel had completely silted up, so the volunteers and myself cleared that channel. That pond has now held water throughout the summer. For the first time in over five years
Frogs were able to successfully breed in the pond and we had lots of little froglets emerge from there over the summer period. Next slide, please. All of the work that we’re doing is being delivered in partnership with the local community. So we work with the with the local Friends group
And also with local businesses and organise corporate volunteer days and work with staff from the hospital as well. Importantly, establishing a good relationship with the local authority, good working relationship, the local authority was identified as a priority and environmental organisations and those that support marginalized people. And we’re also looking
At providing activities which connect people with the natural environment and the non-clinical space which can be used for mental physical therapies. Next slide, please. So what have we achieved? Over the year I’ve worked with a wide range of organisations and established new partnerships with statutory and third sector bodies.
Just looking at the photographs, the photographs also from top left to right. That’s Liverpool Fire and Rescue Service on a Himalayan balsam bashing day. Next to that is the hospital trust’s sustainability team, planting trees during National Tree Week. The picture at the bottom left is Liverpool Beekeeping Society.
So we reached out to Liverpool Beekeeping Society and they now have a hive on the hospital site. And the woodland is is a great source of pollen for the honey bees. As part of the fight that we were having, honey bees coming off the site, potentially competing with native bees.
We work with the Estates team to change the management regime of the grassland areas within the main hospital site, and we’ve converted a hectare of previous amenity grass into Wildflower Meadow, which has been very successful. The picture shows the beekeepers talking to a group of hospital staff.
It’s one of a number of beekeeping demonstrations that they provided. Photograph of the people in front of the white van are The Conservation Volunteers and that’s their midweek group. And they run a green social prescribing scheme and they have helped on the site.
And the final picture is myself with some of the Friends of BlueBell Wood, who really are the stalwarts of of caring for the woodland. They have a dedicated group of volunteers. It’s about eight people in total. That’s some of the some of the group there. The picture is
Of some being presented the partnership award from the Sustainability team. So this year the Friends of Bluebell Wood won the sustainability award of the partnerships. Next slide please. So the future. Funding has been secured for my post and the work that I do within BlueBell Woods up to June 2024.
And that’s through an arrangement with DSM, DSM are a major contractor to the trust, demolishing the old Liverpool Royal Hospital. As part of their social values commitment which was included in the tender, they have agreed to fund the work that I do. Going to share in the chat the information
About the Social Values portal, which includes all the details of how this scheme operates. Over the next 12 months, there’s going to be greater involvement of the Conservation Volunteers in caring for the site and more corporate volunteers days for both staff and local businesses.
It was mentioned this morning about the NHS Greener Communities Fund. Earlier this year we submitted a bid to the NHS Building Communities Fund for the for the 24-26 period, and if successful, this will fund the ranger post and works to BlueBell Woods, which would see the footpaths being upgraded
To provide on site interpretation and regular resting points, making it an easier and safer site for everyone to be able to enjoy. Alongside that, CSH and the trust are also investigating other funding opportunities to secure long term funding for the site. BlueBell Woods has been classified by Liverpool City Council
As a valuable habitat for nature conservation, and it will form part of the local planning authorities Habitat Bank, which will be available for developers who were unable to achieve the new requirements under local planning legislation for 10% biodiversity net gain on their own sites. So the new net gain legislation
Will be a mechanism for ecologically important sites like Bluebell Woods to be managed in the long term for the benefits of wildlife on the health and wellbeing of local communities. So potentially we have got funding for 30 years, which will enable the full management plan that the Mersey Forest produced to be delivered.
Next slide, please. So thank you so much for listening. There’s my contact details. I’m quite happy to pick up conversations with people either through the Q&A or if you want to contact me directly and find out more about the project, I’ll put my email details in the chat. So thank you very much.
Thanks, Nick. I’m guessing I’m handing back to Una while all the panelists join me. We’ve a very short 10 minutes to go through some questions and answers. So do we have all the panelists? Here we go. What’s interesting, since you spotlight them I lose where I am
So Ben, may I just take this opportunity first of all before we go through the questions in the Q&A, you spoke about developing green walking groups for psychiatric inpatients, but what are your thoughts about people that are able to access the green walking once they’ve been discharged from the ward.
That question was something I didn’t touch on in the presentation. It would be great if people going on the ward, if they discover the joys of green walking, that when they’re discharged from the ward, they would be able to access in the community.
It would also be great if there are people who do use green walking as a way of maintaining their mental wellbeing when they go onto the ward, that can continue. So really what we would like to towards is
A paradigm shift where green walking is seen as an integral part of mental health services from primary care through through to inpatient settings. And we know what you mentioned in lockdown, a lot of people discovering as a way of supporting their wellbeing and a lot of GPs are now social prescribing green walking.
This is happening in primary care and part of the reason we started with inpatient settings is because those people who will benefit the most from green walking are those who experience the least, and that includes a lot of psychiatric patients. But ultimately we would like to work towards this being across all settings.
Well, follow up question from Karen is that she’d like to know whether this process or protocol available for integrating into care. pathways. That’s a good question. If I look at the Green Walking Guide, which I can put another link to in the chats, if that’s necessary, but there is information on our website
Which has suggestions for services, hospitals and suggestions for NHS trusts, Health boards, ICSs Ways that maybe CSH could work with different groups to get this integrated more widely. There’s another question for you from Katy is that how have the trusts and the patient and staff got over the safety aspects of allowing
Mental health, vulnerable mental health patients off site for walking? So when people are on the ward and they do have leave and they can have escorted leave or unescorted leave and that building up is part of the safety planning and discharge planning. So this is the way of using
That leave in a different manner. Very often people who have this leave walk to the shops, buy something, walk back and often during groups. When there are walking groups, there is that kind of social aspect to it.
The beauty of the green walking group, is it takes out any of the social prescribing and any of the social aspects and it just focuses on the engagement with nature. And so the social groups happen separately to that, but as Julie said
They did look at positive risk taking in terms of the groups. And as I mentioned, Julie will be part of our network of groups and if you’d like to, come and ask Julie how they navigated that. And then just last quick question, Is there any evidence or examples
Of what’s working specifically with children, young people on green walking? No, we we have been in liaison with the CAHMS service, but we haven’t. worked with them yet. There are yes, there are case studies. Each of the Green Beacon sites and other places have case studies on our green walking pages.
So people might be able to find more details there as well. So thank you. Carol, there’s a question from Jacks. How do you find these companies that kind of contribute to the small projects like creating the raised beds and providing the soil?
Is it a question of just knocking on doors, phoning a friend? How do you do it? Yeah, we’re shameless on social media, so we ask, is this something we need? And usually if you post something somewhere, somebody will respond. And yeah, just making contacts with some old colleagues
And yeah, I like the first one to be shameless. I like myself. Stick with that one. I think that, yeah, if you don’t ask, you don’t get day. There’s a question from Sara here as well about how do you ensure the health and safety requirements when you use on site grown food.
We think in terms of kind of cafes and canteens, Yeah, it’s a really good question. We had a period of time where we weren’t able to supply the cafe because everything was brought in and there’s a number of things. We grow things in raised beds. So for planning purposes, we were not allowed
To grow directly into the ground in case it was contaminated. But then one of the people that champions the gardens is she had some sustainability and she found a way. So I don’t know the ins and outs. Well, if we if we learn more about that, I think that’s a good one
To share actually, because they’ve been interested in some of the chat earlier on today about the kind of the negative aspects of connection with nature. You know, in terms of, you know, we’ve heard all the great stuff about putting your hands in soil and then we hear the other side it
From the clinicians that are scared stiff of, you know, dirt and bacteria. So it’s a real it’s an interesting dilemma the health sector has, isn’t it? Yeah, the compost heap that was controversial. And the bees the bees didn’t make it. We did well things, but health and safety wouldn’t allow the bees.
Well, it was it was the same as the poems that were coming up earlier, actually. So. So it is it is an interesting one. Just conscious of time here. There was a question, maybe if this wants to Tim, I don’t know really, but is there any resources or research
That looks at barriers to access from car and public transport reliant sites? You know, how do you get around that? I don’t I’m not first aware of any research, but I’m sure there will be research out there. But I think the challenge is that
Maybe we need to think more about not getting people to where the sites are that we’re doing that, but actually taking the activities to where there are sites closer to people and it’s far fostering. And that might mean that it’s not our site, but it’s a wildlife trust site or
A local NHS site. So we start building those relationships and conferencing. Actually, yes, the bus is a bit further away, but maybe you could use public transport to get so far. So it is about looking at things a bit more innovatively rather than just, just as you say, transport the problem.
It’s a challenge, right? And the problem is if I can be semantic, but we can, I’m sure, working together, we can find ways around that. It’s an interesting one, isn’t it is. And it’s just one the government’s going to get to grips with the 50 minutes
Target as well of giving people access to the countryside. So no doubt we’ll come back to that one. There’s a question we will say I was quite interested in this one. How do we better use qualitative research than the quantitative measuring of kind of health benefits? You know,
We talked about that kind of those those quotes and how powerful they are. But but are they really persuasive? Who’s got who’s got experience of how persuasive that kind of evidence can be? Gordon, you must have some experience on this. Yeah, I mean, an intervention. We’re always doing a range of paper donations,
But our most powerful are the stories that people tell us. And so we’re always producing case studies that obviously are great emotional draws, really, because people want to see that personal impact. And we have a range. So whenever we’re delivering training or delivering SATs, we do evaluate.
So we create a quantitative evaluation tool, but we also ask all participants through the survey if they would be happy to be part of a case study that we would actually work with them. We would produce a dementia venture, but then provide them so they can actually celebrate it
On their media channels as well for their own organization. So for us that that is the most powerful tool that we have and also from all the things that we do, collecting quotes is really key. As we’ve heard today, some of those things are the most emotive and they really,
Really, you know, give us a demonstration of the true impact of the project. Yeah. I also think of the videos are very powerful as well. So it’s again, it’s about storytelling, isn’t it, when none of us really are from the kind of cross-sector to say how that type of evidence is received really.
So maybe that’s one for others to kind of answer is that Go on Tim you’ve got you waste your finger at me. It’s not good. And I think the chance to getting in front of the right people and often the right people so for that sets the difficulty.
But if we could even better get the right people on site talking to the people with the stories that I think that has much impact than, you know, the videos have impacted systems of impact, but it’s actually meeting face to face
With the people that are benefiting from those services is would be the ideal. But I’m an idealist in that we can we can dream. Well you’ve been so you be successful today we have all of you in some shape or form to get the kind of funding your work.
So I congratulate you on that. I know it’s just going to add about the case study materials and the video. Obviously, Dimension eventually did a big project during when we couldn’t meet people, but just using Zoom. So that video, Chris and Jane, that was undertaken over Zoom, we managed through communicating
With our colleagues, you know, lived with dementia and their carers. We produced 95 short films about the impact of the projects that they participate in, but also the life that they were living and the challenges they were facing. But what really helped. And so it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.
You don’t have to get expensive video makers because as I say, I think that that video for us is incredibly powerful. We use it so many times. And again, Zoom is a great tool to just collect those stories, but more impactful through video. Thank you.
I’m conscious of time and I’ve got to hand back to Sarah, So thank you very much, everybody, for participating in the panel discussions for your very inspirational presentations this afternoon. You all amazing people doing amazing work. Thank you. Before hang back, Sarah, I just want to say
From a personal perspective, having been lost power and been kicked out, thank you very much to you. Not a mess made for getting me back online and getting the questions to me. Your your your help to us all has been very much appreciated. Beside. Well,
Thank you so much, Helen, and thank you to all of the speakers at such interesting talks and so inspiring as well to hear about how people across the country are engaging people and communities in green spaces. And so, yes, thank you so much for sharing about all of those. So we have come
To the end of our kind of formal talks and presentations for the conference, and I hope people really enjoyed listening to all of those. And we’re not quite finished. We have a very exciting awards, NHS Christ Awards, which I’m going talk through with you all.
Before I go into that, we’re going to share and we’ve just been talking at the end of that discussion there about evaluate and I think is going to share and link to our evaluation form for the conference, which will also go out by email.
And if you’d like to use the time now to fill that out, sometimes it’s helpful to just do it rather than adding it to a to do list. And please do I click on that link and give us some feedback on the conference today.
We really love to hear from you about, well, what we could improve on the next time and say, Yes, please speak to her, just do that. And as you’re doing that, I will kick us off talking through exciting awards. And that message is going to show the screen again.
The thing these are projects and sites who have submitted and to be nominated or nominated themselves that awards. And so I just want to say thank you to Duncan, who is one of the trustees and formerly the head of Urban Imperative and Environment, the Natural England
And who helped select the winners for these awards. And we really enjoyed reading through them all and listening to all of the really amazing work that’s been going on. So the best award is for innovative development of green space at Health site, and the winner is the Lambeth Community Center,
IT guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation and they have constructed a therapy garden which they called a linked garden to help support patients to learn which hypothetic skills, which is fantastic. And the runner up is the Christie NHS Foundation Trust. As to their multitude of biodiversity improvements.
And they, they’ve done loads and especially their living walls and you can see a picture of that and just that one on the right and the next ward is for the active community engagement. And the winner of this award is the Park Road Houses at Cardiff University Health Board for a collaborative effort
Between staff, patients and volunteers from the community to transform a barren space into a vibrant and accessible God. And I love this quote that they put in their application saying We witnessed a profound change in our community dynamics. The sense of pride, accomplishment, joy among participants is measurable,
And it’s a really inspiring one that the writing of this award is the Cripps Health Center at the University of Nottingham Health Service, and for donating food from that allotment and to a called Guru Nanak in Nottingham which and feed the hungry in Nottingham so well to Tibet and the next all
Which is for pioneering use of green space by health care professionals. And the winner for this award is little more mental health center, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, and that is for their tiny forest science days. We’ve had a few mentions of tiny forests throughout the day, say,
And so they’ve got a tiny forest nearby and they have science days where they take staff and patients to their local tiny forest as part of patient therapy and connecting with nature. And so well done, little more. And the runner up is University Hospital Orlando at the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.
And for working with down to Earth and to co-design and deliver green infrastructure to facilitate rehabilitation recovery programs. And last but not least, a final award of the day is for accessible ways to support biodiversity and the winner of this award is the Kristie NHS Foundation Trust. But a multitude of biodiversity improvements
Such as bird houses, bat boxes ponds, living walls, native plantings, reuse of materials and permeable concrete, and just to name a few who welcome to the NHS Foundation. Trust on the road is the Princess Hospital in Southampton. And that’s that. I’ve got a project with 84 plants,
Seven tree species, a wildlife, a wildflower meadow, bumblebees, butterflies and other pollinators. So well done to all of these amazing projects. And we just have a final few notable project, which I think is on the next slide, which is just disappears visible for Darwin Nurseries and Farm Shop, which is in Cambridgeshire
And Peterborough, and reinstating that permaculture that’s at the farm shop and self made hospital for developing natural spaces inside and around hospital patients. Health wellbeing and Stratford upon Avon Hospital for that guardians of wellbeing at which all of that. And, and I think on the previous slides there was winner for the
Most trees planted and those joint winners for this at Guild Lodge and at both Baldock surgery and they both planted a thousand trees. That’s amazing. So yes huge well done to all the winners and affects of all feel congratulations in the chat as well. So I’m just going to finish this up
With a few closing comments. And as I say please do fill out the at feedback form if you haven’t already. And in a keynote speech early this morning, Alexis Pistol reminded us of the crisis that we’re facing with biodiversity and nature and the role
That the NHS and health care sites have to play in tackling crisis. In our first session this morning, we heard about how trees and woodlands on the NHS estate are invaluable health care assets. They support and wellbeing. They reduce air pollution and excessive kissing. They offer financial benefits, NHS trusts and beyond.
What we could even cover today. We then heard about planning for planting trees and woodlands on the NHS estate, including the importance of maintaining trees over the decades to come. We heard about biodiversity, net gain requirements and stories of woodland creation plans and action. And this afternoon, in the session we’ve just had,
We had inspiring stories of how people of being engaged with nature through increasing accessibility to green spaces, using them for therapeutic and wellbeing benefits and creating a sense of community through green space activities, green spaces, trees and woodlands have vast benefits that can be seen from a broad range of talks
That we’ve had, say, from improving air quality to wellbeing benefits to addressing health inequalities or to reducing other environmental hazards such as urban setting, to building community and to providing therapeutic benefits and just to name a few. And there’s even more that we’ve discussed today and even more than that as well.
The value of our trees and woodlands goes beyond what we can even cover in a conference like today. And I hope that everyone who’s attended feels really inspired by all of the talks that we had today. And I hope that you will feel more equipped with the tools and knowledge
To take advantage of green spaces that. You will NHS sites. As a reminder that NHS forest has free trees available to NHS England and we’re able to provide advice and support in planning, planting and maintenance of those trees. And so please do make sure you order your trees. And we shot the link
Three times throughout today and we can definitely share that again. So all this to say for me is thank you so much to all of our fantastic speakers and chairs and to the wonderful behind the scenes team who’ve done a fantastic job of keeping us so on track that I think
Perhaps you can finish 10 minutes early. And of course, thank you so much to all of you, all of our attendees, as are coming to our conference today, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your week. And let’s make sure that others within the NHS understand
The true value of trees and woodlands on the NHS estate. Thank you so much for coming today.