Did you know that the borough of Kensington and Chelsea counts the highest levels of pollution in the UK, causing over 60 deaths per year (8%)?
Royal Brompton Hospital is an internationally renowned specialist Trust, treating children and adults with complex cardiac and respiratory conditions. The hospital currently has no outdoor space within its main building for patients to exercise, children to play, and all to enjoy a bit of fresh air.
Working with Living Medicine and the Chelsea Physic Garden, we would like to adapt the outdoor and public spaces for patients, in particular young patients, who need physical activity to improve and maintain their strength, physical and mental.
These 'green' spaces would bring plants that have air-cleaning, medicinal and sensory properties, nurtured and maintained through a patients and community volunteering programme.
Let's turn the hospital green!
What we'll deliver:
- Living Medicine to run an educational programme for patients
- Remove the hard landscaping, which is unsafe
- Add a layer of insulation
- Bring plants and flowers to bring bio-diversity, sensory and air cleaning plants
- Bring sculptural and game elements for activities, slopes, outdoor gym
- Create a layer of soft flooring
- Create a volunteering programme for maintenance
Why it's a great idea:
Our patients remain at the Trust for weeks with an intensive rehabilitation programme of physiotherapy. Due to their physical limitations, they are often not able to walk far or get access to nature. Moreover, walking out onto the streets can aggravate their condition due to the high levels of pollution found in the area.
Being outdoors, surrounded by nature improves health and wellbeing, by increasing happiness, reduces stress, anxiety, acting as a pain relief, and it promotes faster recovery. Exercising outside means being more active without noticing it, meaning improved levels of physical activity = better health.
Tending to an outdoor space would give patients the tools to carry on when they go home, maintaining their physical and mental health.
A sensory green garden will offer our patients a place to enjoy a quiet moment, improve their physical and mental health, learn to care for nature and mitigate the negative effects of hospital life.
It's all wins!
Steps to get it done:
