National Working Group on Social Prescribing
Dose of Nature attend the national working group on social prescribing
Dose of Nature trustees, Dr Alison Greenwood and Dr Dan Bloomfield, attended the first meeting of a new National Working Group on Social Prescribing, jointly hosted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Rebecca Pow MP, in the Jubilee Room, Westminster Hall, on 19th June, 2018.
Social prescribing is proposed as ‘a sustainable response to the rising demands in mental health’, and the working group has been established as a forum in which to discuss issues regarding the introduction of a national social prescribing programme. The meeting was attended by politicians, commissioners, membership organisations, Health Education England, Health and Wellbeing Boards, provider organisations, and the charity sector. Following the meeting, a consensus statement, which can be found here, was produced and a letter written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Rt. Hon. Matt Hancock MP.

We are delighted to share that the Chimo Trust has made a substantial new grant to support the next stage of Dose of Nature’s development, with a particular focus on expanding access for young people experiencing mental health challenges. We first began working with Chimo Trust in 2022, and from the outset they recognised both the urgency of the mental health crisis facing young people and the potential for nature-based interventions to play a meaningful role alongside existing services. At Dose of Nature, we believe that many people fall into the gap between early emotional distress and the threshold for specialist NHS support. Our nature prescriptions are designed to offer an accessible, non-stigmatising and evidence-based intervention that helps people reconnect — with themselves, with others and with the natural world. Over recent years, we have continued to build the evidence base for this approach, including through a randomised controlled trial conducted with the London School of Economics and Political Science. Our outcomes have consistently demonstrated levels of recovery and improvement that outperform average national talking therapy benchmarks, while delivering support in a way that feels more human, preventative and accessible. This new funding from Chimo Trust will support the development of our partnership model, enabling us to work alongside organisations across the UK to deliver Dose of Nature prescriptions for young people in both clinical and community settings. The aim is not only to expand access, but also to help build a scalable model that can support earlier intervention and long-term wellbeing in more communities. The timing of this support is particularly important. The recent interim report from the UK Government’s review into young people’s mental health highlighted the growing need for “earlier, less intensive and more accessible forms” of support beyond specialist clinical services. We believe nature-based interventions can play an important role in that future — especially when they are evidence-based, clinically informed and delivered through trusted community partnerships. We are hugely grateful to Chimo Trust for their continued belief in our work and for helping us take this next step toward making nature-based mental health support more widely available to the young people who need it most.


