Green Social Prescribing

The work to ‘understand the landscape’ has so far identified 620 activities that take place in the outdoors and nature in Humber and North Yorkshire. The programme engaged with 150 of these organisations which helped the team to understand the powerful impact the VCSE has on the health and wellbeing of communities, alongside the enablers and challenges around becoming referral points for providers of health and social care.  

The team also connected with 18 providers of social prescribing services, alongside all four providers of mental health services in the region, to explore opportunities for increased connection to GSP activity.  

Healthcare services have been connected with local providers of GSP activity, 48 social prescribing staff have been trained in GSP and nature connectedness, while a partnership with Natural England and the North York Moors National Park has seen three ‘immersive’ nature days run for 34 healthcare staff and volunteers.     

he team invested a total of £354,589 during 2022 to support VCSE organisations in running GSP activity for their communities. This was made possible by the programme itself and through additional funds secured from NHS Charities Together.  

Between March 2022 and March 2023 over 1,300 people had engaged with 20 of the 36 projects funded. Not only did participants report positive impacts on their mental health and wellbeing, they also reported an:  

• increased connection to nature 
• increased social interaction 
• improved confidence 
• the development of new skills and knowledge, alongside improvements in their physical health.

Working with 13 different service providers (social prescribing, mental health and occupational therapy) 173 people were recruited to be followed on their GSP journey. 

Having sought support for mild to moderate mental ill-health, the work set out to understand the impacts of taking part in outdoor and in-nature activity on wellbeing, anxiety and depression. Two outcome measures were used to monitor the ‘before’ and ‘after’ impact – ONS4, to measure general wellbeing, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).  

The University of York, through the Department of Health Sciences, were commissioned to analyse the data collected and found that: 

• 67% saw improvements in overall wellbeing (as measured by ONS4) 
• 70% saw improvements in overall anxiety (as measured by HADS) 
• 62% saw improvements in overall depression (as measured by HADS) 

• The impact on wellbeing was statistically significant, with the largest improvements seen in life satisfaction and living a worthwhile life. 
• Reductions in depression and anxiety were also statistically significant.  
• The greatest benefit in wellbeing, anxiety and depression were associated with between five and 12 weeks of GSP activity engagement.