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March’s squally showers and whipping winds thankfully died down for this year’s  NHS Sustainability Day. In fact, 23 March dawned optimistically sunny and distinctly Spring-Like, which was very welcome as the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's new head of operational estates, Claire Hennessy, was planting two new lime trees as part of NHS Forest's national Two@2 event, run by The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare.

"Smart design and investment in sustainable public spaces can help increase levels of physical activity, reduce traffic injuries, urban violence and urban air pollution including greenhouse gas emissions, both protecting public health and mitigating climate change”. This summarises the key conclusions of a WHO side event at a Habitat III Thematic Meeting on Public Spaces which took place from 4th to 5th April 2016 in Barcelona, Spain.

The Great Outdoor Gym Company (TGO http://www.tgogc.com/) is helping the NHS Forest plant new woodlands at several healthcare sites across the UK. TGO generously sponsor one tree for the NHS Forest for each piece of outdoor gym equipment that they install, and they have now donated 2,000 trees to our charitable programme. 

Obesity and diabetes are soaring at shocking rates and the NHS is spending £9bn a year on tackling health issues like these that are linked to physical inactivity. Multiple reputable studies show that exercise can help to prevent these health issues and several reports show that taking exercise outdoors is more beneficial that exercising indoors. Even relatively small increases in physical activity are associated with some protection against chronic diseases and an improved quality of life.