Showcasing our green space for Greener AHP Week
Greener Allied Health Professionals (AHP) Week takes place from Monday 31 March to Friday 4 April 2025. As the third largest clinical workforce in the NHS, AHPs play an important role in delivering a net zero carbon and environmentally sustainable NHS.
We're showcasing one of our green spaces which has been set up and coordinated by the Trust's Live Team, which provides a service and environment that leads the way in innovative patient experience, involvement and engagement.
Highbury Community Garden
Highbury Community Garden was set up and co-ordinated by the Live Team and is a shared resource for patients, volunteers and staff across Adult Mental Health, Mental Health Services for Older People and Intellectual Developmental Disability Services. Funded through a Lottery Fund grant, they have continued to provide a wide range of resources and activities.
The community garden has been awarded 'Outstanding' in the Britain in Bloom 'It's Your Neighbourhood' awards every year since its creation in 2016. Originally, the area was a small patch of grass located between the car park and the perimeter wall at Highbury hospital, Nottingham. In the garden's centre, a large shed and greenhouse act as focal points around which raised beds are positioned around. Each bed is cared for by one of the hospital wards/units or a community group.
Raised beds, trained fruit trees, a wildflower meadow, and a sensory garden offer opportunities for service users to participate in horticultural therapy. A great example of the NHS fulfilling its role as an anchor institution in a green space project, this garden is a green haven for service users, staff and the wider community.
The project acts as a stepping stone between the in-patient experience and the wider community. The garden has provided a space where community partners provide 'taster' sessions to develop the skills of patients and to share information with patients about what services they can access post-discharge. Gardening packs are also provided to people in the wider community who are in receipt of care from the Trust. These packs enable people to access the health benefits from participating in gardening activities in their own home.
The garden is a member of the Nottingham Growing Network, a group that supports community gardens and food growing spaces in Nottingham. In-patients are introduced to services that are available in the wider community and that they can engage with post discharge enabling them to continue to access the mental and physical health benefits of participating in green activities and being in green spaces.
This garden has led to increased success with post-discharge engagement, and the impact is clear. In the words of one participant: Part of me always thought gardening was something I would enjoy but I didn't have the confidence to have a go. My experience at Highbury Community Garden means that I'm going to go home with a gardening pack and do my own garden now.
Esther Hepple, Peer Support Dementia Hub group facilitator said:
"With the support of GreenSpace, the Therapeutic Intervention Service offers two therapeutic gardening groups for people living with early stages of Dementia. Utilising the beautiful green space at Highbury community garden and Ashfield Wellbeing Centre enables participants a chance to find peer support, friendship and community, all while enjoying the outdoors and nature.
"Sustainability in every sense of the word is important to the groups, for example from recycling and making plant pots to making Christmas wreaths largely from foraged materials to sell to staff and the public. This aims to help participants maintain different skills, provide that all important sense of achievement and enables us to raise funds to sustain the groups."
You can find out more about our green spaces at the Trust's Green Hub, a resource designed to support everyone to spend more time in green space. https://www.nottinghamshirehealthcare.nhs.uk/green-hub
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