The NHS Forest Annual Conference took place on 7th October with a range of delegates attending from within and outside the NHS. The theme was Creating Healing Environments and we had a range of presentations including:
Amanda Duffy, Occupational Therapist and Project Officer for The Conservation Volunteers, who talked about the New Health New Space community project she works at based on an NHS site in Doncaster that uses green space for therapeutic purposes.
Georgina Smith, who spoke about the various projects she runs as Corporate Sustainability Manager for Gloucestershire Care Services and the role the NHS Forest played in the early days. She highlighted the variety of community organisations involved and how clinicians have been involved in projects at the North Cotswolds Hospital.
Antony Cobley, a senior HR manager in governance, completed the presentations with an explanation of the work he has done in the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust; first introducing a fruit and veg stall outside the hospital and using that as a springboard to bring in community orchards, hay meadows, allotments, a woodland walk and walks within the hospital for the elderly. He talked about the different stakeholders who were involved and how he had overcome the obstacles that have arisen over the past three years.
The presentations were followed by workshops on how to engage clinicians, engaging with service users, green prescriptions and funding a forest site. During the afternoon, Amos and Jonno from Lancashire Care led an enthusiastic, if wet, group of delegates around Guild Park’s award-winning ‘Grow Your Own’ site.
The day was rounded off with Canon Peter Ballard, Deputy Chair of the Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust presenting the NHS Forest Awards for 2014.
More details will be available on the NHS Forest website soon.
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