Preventing and Tackling Mental Ill Health through Green Social Prescribing Project – A case study

Green social prescribing (GSP) is a form of social prescribing, which has become popular with the NHS as a non-clinical method of improving health and wellbeing. Green social prescribing is “an approach whereby a general practitioners (GPs) or another professional – often via an assigned intermediary known as a Link Worker – navigates a patient or client toward a nature-based intervention and activity such as a local walking and running program, community gardening or other outdoor project” (Fixsen & Barrett, 2022, p. 2).

The GSP project, including partners from universities including the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Exeter and the University of Plymouth, UK Government organisations including Defra, DHSC, NHS England and OHID, received £5.77m to roll out the provision of nature-based green social prescribing based on approaches.

Following a rollout in seven ‘Test and Learn sites’, 8,339 people participated in a range of activities that varied by site. This resulted in overall happiness of participants increasing from 5.3/10 pre-intervention to 7.5/10, and increased other specific measures of happiness while reducing anxiety. Based on a WELLBY approach employed by the authors in their evaluation, they provide a central estimate of £14.0 million to the value of improvements in life satisfaction gained from the GSP project (Haywood et al., 2024).

As a result, the central conservative estimate of social return on government investment stood at £1.88 per pound spent.

One of a series of case study examples that demonstrates the value of Environmental Social Science in research and practice. More info