Photo credit: RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018 RHS Feel Good Garden https://www.rhs.org.uk
Healthy London Partnership joined colleagues from NHS England to volunteer in the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Feel Good Garden at Chelsea Flower Show between 22-26 May 2018. The Feel Good Garden was awarded worthy winner this year and recognised the NHS’s 70th birthday and the therapeutic benefits of gardening.
The garden will be relocated to Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I), will provide a contemporary therapeutic space for the benefit of patients and staff at the Highgate Mental Health Centre, after being named the worthy winners of an RHS competition.
The Feel Good Garden provided the ideal setting to talk to visitors and raise awareness of Social Prescribing as a way of mobilising local assets, such as parks and outdoor spaces, to enable individuals to significantly improve their physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Healthy London Partnership is supporting the roll out of Social Prescribing schemes across London. Interest in social prescribing by the NHS and doctors – where patients are referred to local, non-clinical community services which could include gardening, arts and creativity, and befriending – is on the increase across England. An estimated 20% of GPs’ time is spent on problems with social causes, and social prescribing could be a way to manage increasing demands on the NHS, including pressures on GPs’ time.
Share our animations
If you are new to social prescribing or keen to know more about how it can be used to benefit individuals and London’s health and care, watch our animations:
Learn how to provide social prescribing services
More information
Find out more about social prescribing in our proactive care section
For more information please email the Proactive Care Team at hlp.proactivecare@nhs.net.