At North Manchester General Hospital some of our green space is dedicated to allotments, making clear links between the natural environment, food production and health. The usage and management of these spaces varies, however we’re aiming to create more consistency to enable more structured use by staff and patients. We’re currently collaborating with local food charity Real Food Wythenshawe and Incredible Edible to re-establish and develop some of our growing spaces to support patients transitioning out of hospital as well as running cooking classes for staff members.
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) is one of the largest acute trusts in the UK, employing over 20,000 staff. Having expanded over the past three years, we’re now responsible for ten hospitals across seven sites, providing a wide range of services from comprehensive local general hospital care through to highly specialised regional and national services.
Our green spaces vary across the trust, in both quantity and quality, and need to respond to different demands. To enable a better understanding of the environmental and health potential for these spaces, in 2018 we commissioned an ecological and natural capital assessment. This identified that 19% of the Estate consisted of green spaces of which 15% was tree cover. This has provided a helpful baseline to understand future opportunities, balancing the ecological value of providing greater biodiversity impact, with the social requirements of having accessible spaces with visual appeal.