We’re in the process of applying to become a charity. Charity status will allow us to act as a conduit for funding for Garden Therapy Projects – applying for and allocating funds to help Garden Projects within the Directory operate in a more sustainable way.
It will also allow development of a network of Green Therapy providers in the UK – building on the foundations laid in the Gardening4Health Directory. This network will facilitate connection between providers, education, and sharing knowledge and experience – through newsletters and conferences – such as those held at Tuppenny Barn in 2023.
Have you personally benefitted from social prescribing? Or do you simply believe in the power of nature to boost your mood? Send a free postcard to your GP today so they know nature helps people!
There are 4 postcards you can choose from. Once you have chosen your favourite write your personal message and we’ll help you find the address it will be posted to.
Why send a postcard?
More and more doctors, physios and occupational therapists are starting to recommend activities with nature and spending time outdoors. This is called ‘social prescribing’ which is all about connecting people to local groups, activities, and services and other sources of support that can help them feel better. Social prescribing is having a positive impact on health and well-being, and is even starting to free-up GP’s time as people find they need to make appointments less often.
It’s important that all health professionals understand the impact of nature on our lives. But they’re busy people who rarely get to hear from patients when they are feeling well. Here’s a chance to change that!
The Wildlife Trusts have organised a send a postcard to your GP campaign. It’s very easy and can be donw via their website directly.
The RHS is building a national wellbeing gardens network
“Our vision is to create a UK-wide network of Community Wellbeing Gardens across the country. This will be a green web of welcoming, safe, neutral, accessible and inclusive spaces – social hubs where plants, skills, ideas, kindness and support are shared. Our RHS Wellbeing Gardens initiative is being piloted at University Hospital Lewisham with the aim of rolling out the model and benefits to healthcare sites across the country.
The wider network will be informed by learnings from Lewisham Hospital Garden and will also be designed by our RHS Wellbeing Gardens Ambassador, Adam Frost. We are currently working with healthcare trusts and community organisations to deliver two more wellbeing gardens at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds and Colchester Hospital in Essex. There is potential to expand the programme in future years.
Gardening for wellbeing is a key focus for the RHS. We are conducting practical scientific research into the environmental and social benefits of gardens and plants, and raising the profile of gardens and gardening to support people’s wellbeing through strong links to government, the horticultural industry and our community partners.
A partnership between the RHS and NHS to develop wellbeing spaces for staff, patients and the local community.
During the pandemic, Maria Leong, an anaesthetist registrar at UHL, contacted the RHS requesting support to develop a garden, to enable NHS staff to take a break from their intense workloads – a space to breathe and to reflect and remember colleagues they had lost to Covid-19.
Maria explains, “For patients and their relatives, it will be a chance to escape the clinical environment and talk with their loved ones. We are working on involving lots of different patient groups, such as paediatric patients, and those with chronic pain and dementia. The path will also be able to accommodate hospital beds, enabling staff to bring stable but critically ill patients outside to feel fresh air, sunshine and be in a green space.”
Leading garden designer Adam Frost, who is passionate about celebrating our NHS heroes, designed the scheme.
Our Community Outreach team have forged close partnerships with many local organisations to develop an inclusive wellbeing programme and promote the garden as a safe, peaceful and tranquil local asset for everyone to use. There is a weekly club in the hospital garden where staff and patients are invited to switch off, learn a new skill and meet new people in a safe space, where activities include everything from yoga, meditation and wellbeing walks to dried flowers, houseplant care and mosaic making. There are also sessions for adults with additional needs, patient and carer support groups such as a dementia group and a perinatal group.”
Since I spoke at the Propagating Green Therapies Conference in October about, amongst other things, how we have employed Garden Therapy Workers in Tonbridge, I’ve been contacted several times about how this works. So, to help others who may want to follow this model I thought it would be helpful to create a summary document to try and explain it.
In a nutshell it’s a way of using NHS resources in England to pay the salaries of staff for Green or Blue Therapies. I know there are many different views and takes on what constitutes a Green Therapist/Garden Therapy worker/STH Practitioner, and I’m not going to dwell on these definitions. The main intention here is simply to highlight a pragmatic means of getting away from having to source charitable funds to pay their salaries.
In 2018 the NHS England Long Term Plan encouraged groups of Practices to collaborate – sharing skills and expertise, and clubbing together to provide services for their locality populations. This was through the formation of Primary Care Networks (PCNs).
As part of this arrangement NHS money was made available for the PCNS (not the Practices) to make use of extra staff to help provide services to their patients. This scheme is called the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS). The NHS has defined the titles of these roles and their salary scales. Examples include Clinical Pharmacists, Paramedics, and Social Prescribing Link Workers.
So, far away the majority of GP Practices in England are now part of PCNs. And these PCNs have been looking for ways not to lose out of ARRS monies as they become available.
What we’ve done in Tonbridge – where we have started NHS Garden Therapy from scratch, is employ two of the Social Prescribing Link Workers, to provide Gardening Therapy for our patients.
It’s a bit of a work-around, and the title doesn’t really do justice to the skill-set that we advertised for when we employed them, but it’s proving to be a reliable and sustainable way of getting monies from the NHS to do this important work.
(Just to complicate matters, we in Tonbridge have a 3rd party Charity called Involve which acts as the employer for all our ARRS staff. This is simply because our particular PCN’s legal structure means we are not able to employ them directly).
In Tonbridge, as a PCN, we set up our Garden Therapy from scratch. However, if there are established Gardens (Charities or Social Enterprises) that want to try and get support in this way, then I would strongly encourage them to approach their local GP Surgeries to see if their PCNs are interested in providing Green or Blue Therapies. Then they can release funds via the ARRS scheme in this way to pay for the relevant therapists. If they are already being employed on a salaried or sessional basis by the gardens, then the PCNs could apply for ARRS monies in the same way that we did – and then advertise for the existing staff to apply for the roles. This then takes the financial burden of their employment off the Garden/Charity itself.
The people with the clout at the PCNs are the Clinical Directors, usually a lead GP in one of the participating practices. They are the people to approach. By all means show them this document to explain the context.
Meanwhile, I’ve been lobbying NHS England to add Garden Therapist/STH Practitioner to the official ARRS list, in order that this work-around might not be necessary in future.
To my knowledge this approach is not possible in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, as they have separate systems overseeing Primary Care provision in their devolved NHS.
If you want further advice on this, or have additional questions, then please feel free to contact me through the website or a DM.
The whole day is available to catch up on online for £30. This fee is to cover the cost of the post-production editing, and any surplus will be gifted to the Transforming Tuppenny appeal.
Monday at Tuppenny Barn – a very special day of connection and learning, both in person and online.
Extraordinary speakers and wonderful delegates. All together helping each other navigate the pathway towards the universal provision of Nature-based Therapies.
Within this wonderful healing and growing space; a day suffused with the Tuppenny ethos of sustainability, humility, sharing, and care.
It’s been such a privilege to be able to combine forces organising it all, with Annie Guilfoyle and Maggie Haynes. Both are truly inspirational people.
So many fabulous people to thank, but I wanted to single out Arit Anderson and Annie, for steering us through the day so deftly. Plus Maggie, Rosemary, and the formidable Team Tuppenny, who combine thoughtfulness, kindness with (at times ruthless!) efficency.
Also, to acknowledge that the event couldn’t have gone ahead without the support of all of our generous sponsors – Alitex, British Garden Centres, Garden Masterclass, Natural England, and Westland. And Monty 🐕.
“This week we talk to Richard Claxton a General (medical) Practitioner who does social prescribing and campaigns for gardening as therapy. He has created an NHS Garden Therapy project in Tonbridge and is a Tustee for the charity Greenfingers. He has also created a website https://gardening4health.co.uk
Tuppenny barn, in Southbourne – near Chichester, is deeply rooted in education, organic horticulture and sustainability. In the last four years it has branched in a big way into therapeutic horticulture.
Groups visit to work with Social and Horticultural Therapists, connecting with nature in a safe and supported space – improving their physical and mental health – as well as learning new skills and problem solving. All the while mixing with others, making friends , and in no small way helping to enhance the biodiversity and ecologic health and sustainability of their neighbourhood, and beyond.
Groups include those for people with mental health problems, brain injuries and chronic neurological conditions, homelessness or other vulnerabilities, female Veterans, Young Carers – to name but a few.
All of this is the brainchild of Maggie Haynes – a Veteran herself, and her vision and energy have driven the centre forward, broadening its activities, and thus its importance to its community.
She also has the tidiest shed I’ve ever seen, of which she is rightly proud!
It was a pleasure to meet her, and have a guided tour of the Garden yesterday; a fundraising day in the shape of a Garden Clinic, where punters like us could come along and get our gardening queries answered by no less than Annie Guilfoyle, and Ben Pope.
It was great to meet all three – and especially to chat with Maggie – who’s built the reality of what so many of us dream of – and talk about the obstacles we face in turning universal STH into a national reality, and how to overcome them.
Gardening 4 Health 