The Great Outdoor Gym Company (TGO) has generously sponsored 700 new trees to be planted at our NHS Forest sites, including a hospital in Liverpool, Bethlem Royal Hospital in Southeast London and Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor. The donation helps mark NHS Sustainability Day, held this year on Thursday 19 March.
Through our tree sponsorship scheme the NHS Forest plants trees at healthcare sites across the UK, from acute hospitals to mental health trusts and GP surgeries. Trees combat climate change by locking up carbon and providing vital shade; they also support biodiversity and contribute to wellbeing. Since 2012, TGO has sponsored over 3,900 trees in the NHS Forest, one tree for every piece of gym equipment sold.
Some of the sponsored trees will be planted at Bethlem Royal Hospital, a psychiatric hospital run by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, where the company has already built an outdoor gym. This has provided the hospital’s service users with new opportunities to exercise outdoors, offering huge benefits for their mental and physical health. Silver birches will be planted at St Thomas’ Hospital as a tribute to the company’s late chairman, John Tarrant, who battled diabetes and heart disease.
Sarah Dandy, NHS Forest Coordinator, said, “Thanks to The Great Outdoor Gym Company, a number of our NHS Forest sites will be creating woodlands which will bring environmental and therapeutic benefits for all who access the healthcare estates.”
Georgie Delaney, TGO’s co-founder, said, “Now more than ever we need to look after our health and protect nature. Movement is a great form of preventative medicine, boosting immunity. So is getting out in nature, especially for our mental health.
Our partnership with the NHS Forest is completely in line with our ethos at The Great Outdoor Gym Company. Our health is linked with the health of the planet. By restoring forests, we restore our own wellbeing. We can also take the pressure off the NHS by activating our own natural medicines like movement, sunshine and good nutrition.”