Skip to main content

Green walking for mental health recovery

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare’s Green Walking Project aims to move the mental health paradigm away from a more clinical, medication led approach, and towards a more sustainable and holistic model of care. The Green Walking Project aims to reconnect patients with nature and outside spaces both as a form of treatment and as a preventative measure.

CSH can empower clinicians, ward staff and patients themselves with the tools, knowledge and information they need to make green walking an integral part of all mental health services

How Green Walking started

In 2018 with funding from the Network for Social Change, CSH recruited teams across eight NHS Mental Health Trusts to run a pilot scheme of new Green Walking groups for inpatients.  The wealth of benefits and first-hand knowledge from these Green Beacon Sites informed the writing of Green Walking in Mental Health Recovery: A Guide. The guide was endorsed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Occupational Therapists, Royal College of Nursing and the Maudsley Charity on launch in May 2020. 

Green Walking in mental health recovery: A guide is a resource to help professionals start new groups within their wards, the guide also summarises relevant evidence as well as representing perspectives from patients and a wide range of professionals.

The Green Walking in Mental Health Recovery initiative continues to promote and support walking in green spaces in the care of people with severe mental illness, to aid their recovery and rehabilitation, through resourcing and supporting NHS trusts to implement Green Walking. The initiative seeks to identify and overcome barriers preventing greater access to the natural world and empower the health service to integrate engagement with green spaces into standard models of inpatient care and beyond into other mental health settings. 

Changes in psychiatric care

Green Walking groups can provide a solution

Green walking groups can address issues in each of the above problems areas. The groups provide respite and healing to people receiving inpatient psychiatric care through walking together in nature, building on a significant existing body of evidence that has established the health and wellbeing benefits of green spaces and of walking.

Green walking groups can lay the foundation for transformational healthcare policy. Implications of the climate crisis have made it increasingly clear that delivery of effective healthcare by the NHS is not possible without an urgent shift towards sustainable policy and preventative models of health. Walking groups are a known but under-utilised intervention in mental health care which call on the physical and mental health benefits of engagement with green space. Implementation of Green Walking can be delivered as part of the aims of net zero, sustainable healthcare and integrated care policies.

The benefits of Green Walking

Green Waking in a group

About the Green Walking in Mental Health Recovery initiative for sustainable healthcare

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH) started the Green Walking in Mental Health Recovery initiative in psychiatric hospital setting as inpatients are generally the client group with the least access to green spaces and who as a result benefit from Green Walking the most. CSH is working towards a shift in the mental health paradigm where Green Walking is seen as an integral component of mental health wellbeing and recovery across all mental health settings, from primary care through to acute inpatient services. 

Green Walking case studies

Sign up to your own Green Walking project

Individual guidance to setting up Green Walking

I’m ready to set up a Green Walking group on my ward. How do I get started?

We’re very glad to hear that you want to start a Green Walking group. The information that you need to facilitate this can be found within the Guide to Green Walking in Mental Health Recovery, which you can download for free here.

What funding might I need for Green Walking groups?

Green walking is a low-cost intervention which uses available time and human resources efficiently. Some groups have hospital volunteers co-facilitating to support staff numbers.  You may want to access funds for certain items, but these may also be available for free. For example, some wards have set up donation schemes for wet weather gear. 

How do I get support with Green Walking groups?

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare hosts a monthly Green Walking Networking Group meeting. This provides peer support for people running or wanting to set up a Green Walking group on their ward.  You can find more information and free registration here

You can also ask questions about Green Walking in CSH’s own Mental Health Sustainable Network and/or the Green Space for Health Networks.

Green Walking is working well in my setting- how can I scale it up?

Once the efficacy of your green walking group is apparent, other local wards may want to replicate this.  Green walking could grow into the group programme on all the wards of your hospital.  Speak to your line manager or service lead about the development of further green walking groups. 

Service guidance to setting up Green Walking

I’d like there to be Green Walking groups across my hospital or ICB/Trust/Health Board. How do I get started?

Liaise with the clinical teams on the wards to ascertain who is ready to start a Green Walking Group. The information needed to set this group up can be found within the Guide to Green Walking in Mental Health Recovery, which can be downloaded for free here.

Once the efficacy of the first green walking group is apparent, other wards often want to replicate this. Use the knowledge, learning and resources from the first group to facilitate integration of green walking into the group programme on all the wards of your hospital. 

What funding might I need for Green Walking groups

Green walking is a low-cost intervention which uses available time and human resources efficiently.  Some groups have hospital volunteers co-facilitating to support staff numbers.  You may want to access funds for certain items, but these may also be available for free.  For example, some wards have set up donation schemes for wet weather gear.

How do I get support with Green Walking groups?

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare hosts a monthly Green Walking Networking Group meeting. This provides peer support for people running or wanting to set up a Green Walking group on their ward.  You can find more information and free registration here

You can also ask questions about Green Walking in CSH’s own Mental Health Sustainable Network and/or the Green Space for Health Networks.

I have funding options and need help to implement Green Walking or to scale it up?

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare offers project management of the development and implementation of Green Walking across health services. If you would like to see Green Walking to be integrated across your Trust/Health Board/ICS, throughout inpatient services and across other mental health settings, then CSH can provide oversight of this initiative. For example:

If you would like Green Walking to be integrated across your Trust/Health Board, throughout inpatient services and across other mental health services, then CSH can provide oversight of this initiative. Email us with any queries about your Green Walking programme.