Get Involved
NHS staff, patients and the local community all have key roles to play in the NHS Forest project.
The NHS Forest is a project coordinated by the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. Funded by charitable trusts and corporate and individual sponsorship, the project’s central aims are to:
-
improve the health and wellbeing of patients, staff
and communities by increasing access to green space on or near to NHS land - encourage greater social cohesion between NHS sites and the local communities around them
- spark projects that bring together professionals and volunteers to use new and existing woodland for art, food crops, reflection and exercise, and to encourage biodiversity
- highlight innovative ideas to encourage the use of gardens and other green space for therapeutic purposes.
We do this by:
- Planting the NHS Forest
- Setting up Green Health Routes
- Hosting the NHS Forest Conference
- Compiling an evidence base for the impact of nature on health
- Supporting the development of therapeutic gardens in clinical settings
- Embedding Nature Recovery Rangers at NHS sites
- Supporting workplace wellbeing initiatives using green space
- Partnering with green space and healthcare charities.
Find out more about our programmes here. Watch our NHS Forest video below.