The Landscape Institute (LI) has responded to the Department of Health and Social Care’s recent call for evidence and discussion paper on a new 10-year mental health and wellbeing plan.
Recognising the range of health and wellbeing benefits that access to nature provides, we
make the case in our response that landscape and green infrastructure have a key part to play in supporting better mental health outcomes for communities everywhere.
The LI’s key recommendations include:
- Access to green spaces and nature is a demonstrably effective tool to manage and prevent poor mental health, as well as to promote physical health and wellbeing.
- The level of access to nature in urban areas varies, with disadvantaged communities generally less able to access high-quality green spaces.
- The landscape sector can support the development of urban green and blue spaces and increase accessibility to nature.
- Green social prescribing is a welcome addition to the NHS approach, and there is scope to develop NHS estates to support the roll-out of programmes and activities.
- We need a whole-system, holistic approach to achieve better mental health outcomes, with multi-agency working and coordination and the ability to share data and best practice.
- There is an opportunity through the development of small-scale, local community green projects to innovate and test new approaches.
- We need long-term funding models with flexible procurement to support the rollout of green health models, with projects strategically managed to enable better outcomes.
The Landscape Institute’s full response can be found here.
