Our Natural Health Service
Scotland’s natural environment is a valuable health-promoting asset. This initiative works to ensure this value is fully realised.
What is Our Natural Health Service?
Scotland’s extensive, diverse, and accessible natural environment has long been appreciated. But realising the potential of Scotland’s outdoors to contribute to better health and wellbeing required a more joined up approach between health, environment and other sectors.
Following the success of the NHS Greenspace Demonstration Project established in 2012 – a partnership project which resulted in greenspace improvements across 87 hectares of the NHS estate - Our Natural Health Service was commissioned in 2015 by Ministers for both Health and Environment. This was initially led by NatureScot and involved partners from local and national government and voluntary organisations across a range of sectors.
The main aims of the programme were:
- Greater public and professional awareness and uptake of the benefits and opportunities to use the outdoors as part of their everyday lives.
- Increased use of nature based health promotion solutions to be routinely embraced by the health and social care sectors for prevention, care and supported self-management.
- Stronger recognition across key sectors of the shared responsibility for improving public health through prevention and early intervention.
Our Natural Health Service flow chart
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A diagram demonstrating what we mean by 'Our Natural Health Service'. It depicts the following three core elements of public health and social care that can be supported by Scotland's natural environment and green infrastructure.
The first is everyday contact with nature through partaking in recreation, pastimes, volunteering, learning and active travel.
The second is nature based health promotion initiatives such as health walks, green gyms and community growing. These elements are targeted towards the general population.
The third is nature based interventions with a defined health or social outcome, such as therapeutic and exercise programmes as a treatment or intervention. This third element would be targeted towards people with a defined need, for example via a referral from their GP or health and social care provider.
How it worked
An action programme was developed with partners that sought to address the barriers to making more use of green health within health and social care delivery. At its core were the two strategic interventions below, which piloted coordinated approaches to the use of nature-based solutions among key segments of the population.
NHS Greenspace for Health Partnerships
These tested partnership models that contribute to the management of the NHS outdoors estate and its use by patients, staff, visitors and local communities. NHS Greenspace for Health Partnerships are a development of the NHS Greenspace Demonstration Project, which aimed to realise the health-promoting potential of NHS Greenspace.
Green Health Partnerships
During 2018, four Green Health Partnerships were established in Dundee, Highland, Lanarkshire and North Ayrshire. While the core funding for these partnerships ended in 2024, each of the partnerships remain active and are working to embed green health into their local health and community planning structures.
Similar initiatives have also been developed in other parts of Scotland, most notably the NHS Lothian Charity’s Green health Strategy and public health elements of the Cairngorms 2030 project which includes a green prescription programme.
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