For Hayleight Austin-Richards, it is a place to cry, breathe fresh air and remind itself that there is something magical about butterflies. As far as she can, he visits the director of the suite of the stroke rehabilitation unit in Chaplin Alrton in Leeds. It was created for Chelsea’s flower show And install last summer.
The function of Austin Richards can be heavy and difficult, and you see that people are going through some of the worst moments of their lives. The Garden, which was created by the Miria Harris garden designer at the stroke association, refuge: “It is quiet. The way it is designed, takes you and raises you. You feel like you are in the middle of anywhere,” she said.
“Spending a few minutes or half an hour outside, in nature, sometimes in the sun – helps you. You reduce pressure, return to work with renewable energy and a new set of eyes, and feel more joyful and more focused.”
With tension between NHS employees In standard levelsAnd as awareness of the psychological benefits of existence in nature, increasing numbers of NHS hospital boxes are noticed that are not exploited to their external spaces – and to switch to gardeners for assistance. In the past ten months alone, 16 NHS, GPS and other health care environments have contacted the Royal Gardening Association (RHS) to request help in creating “luxury gardens” for employees, patients and visitors.
These gardens are designed to motivate the senses and provide “optimistic” places for rest and address feelings, according to the director of the RHS Victoria Shering Park Program.
Instead of watching their external spaces as areas they pass or look at, “hospitals began to see these spaces as providing real health and luxury for their employees and visitors,” she said. “They saw them working for patients in clinical places such as the Hurashio Park [at the National Spinal Injuries Centre] Magi [specialist cancer centres]”
“The internal spaces can find peace and calm in a crowded hospital site, often very limited:” employee rooms are excessively banned and they are not an environment that helps you get rid of stress and remove your head. Pollard called the RHS team to open the welfare garden at St. James University Hospital, Leeds, in September.
The park is part of a national network of luxury gardens that RHS is doing throughout England for NHS and patients because it works to design Evidence based on the welfare gardens This year is scheduled.
Pollard believes that there are “no doubt” benefits that must be obtained from installing gardens. “We have a real issue of mental health at the national level.” “NHS is a stressful environment in which it should be, regardless of the function it does. It is a lot of horrific pressure and gets worse on Covid.”
It adds employee deficiency and accumulation in the long waiting list only to this pressure. “We have to take care of our employees. NHS is not only one of the people we serve, but the people who work inside it, and if we forget that, we will not have NHS.”
The first park was opened in the RHS scheme in 2022 at the University of Lewisham Hospital, where 70 % of the employees surveyed by RHS stated that the park improved its well -being and indicated 81 % to a positive impact on the morale in the workplace. Another park was opened last summer at Colchster Hospital, and one of them is scheduled to be in Greater Manchester.
All three gardens are designed so far by the BBC The world of the gardeners Adam Frost presenter. “In the hospital environment, you can try all possible human feelings – whether it is anger, tears or a moment of joy,” said Frost. “The gardens give us space. If you see a bird’s land on a tree or a bee gathering, this is a moment you do not think about anything else.”
In addition to providing sites protected for sitting and paths that can be accessed on moving chairs, all the welfare gardens designed by frosts have layers of agriculture, from trees and shrubs to plants and herbal lamps: “There is a great diversity there that will carry people throughout the season.
“In the end, the gardens revolve around moments – moments are created through something new that appears on a specific day and the wildlife that comes to the garden,” said Frost.
When Austin Richards managed to take a break in the park, you feel the benefits for hours. “I definitely feel better at the end of the day, when I go home. It is also used every day by our patients with treatment sessions.”
Some of her patients were stuck in a clinical environment for several months. “To feel, even for a few minutes, they are not in the hospital – it makes a big difference for them.”