'Back to nature' prescription for a healthy nation

A new government report this week will urge doctors to encourage patients to make more use of outdoor activities from organic gardening to forest improvement to combat a range of diseases.

The "green prescriptions" are being advocated by Scottish Natural Heritage, the government's countryside adviser, which says outdoor pursuits should become part of mainstream treatment for conditions such as obesity, heart diseases and mental health.

In a foreword to the report, Dr Harry Burns, the chief medical officer for Scotland, said patients could benefit from this type of approach.

"Like many European countries, Scotland has a number of long-standing and significant health issues, including cardiovascular disease, obesity and mental health," he says.

"Increasingly sedentary and urbanised lifestyles contribute to the problem".

Peter Rawcliffe, the head of the Quality of Life Unit at SNH, says in Health and the Environment: A Positive Approach: "'Green prescription' is a term that is increasingly used to describe a referral scheme by primary health-care practitioners and community health projects, which involves physical activity in outdoor settings with a strong natural environment component.

Pilot projects are already being held in Scotland involving activities that can be "prescribed" to patients.

Assigning tasks to patients in Blarbuie Woodland, near Argyll & Bute Hospital, has brought a reduction in suicidal tendencies among mental-health patients and a fall in cigarette smoking.

Iain Forbes, who suffers from agoraphobia, said the work gave him a "sense of value and worth, which builds self-esteem. The woodland project gives me that bit better quality of life."

A conservation therapy programme involving manual work in the forest at Chatelherault Country Park, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, is aimed at people suffering from drug and alcohol misuse.

And in Craigmillar, Edinburgh, a scheme by the Bridgend Allotment Community Health Inclusion Project sees patients with chronic health problems caused by poverty and social isolation grow their own organic fruit and vegetables.

Rawcliffe said: "We want to see 'green prescription' becoming a more and more mainstream component of primary and community health care."

Rawcliffe's report will be submitted tomorrow to a conference in Edinburgh, 'Nature – What's in it for Me?, organised by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. He says doctors and patients will need to re-think their approach to what constitutes treatment.

"Prescribing a health walk might not be seen by some as a serious treatment," he said.

The nationwide Green Gym scheme by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers combines moderate exercise with environmental tasks, and the Paths to Health scheme, organised by the Paths for All Partnership, provides walking groups that attract 20,000 people.

"SNH believes we can make more of these projects through developing a more co-ordinated approach and getting them incorporated into mainstream health service delivery," said Rawcliffe.

Exercise rates in Scotland are notoriously poor, with two-thirds of women and half of men failing to achieve the recommended levels of exercise.

More than a third of girls and a quarter of boys fail to achieve the recommended 60 or more minutes of physical activity seven days a week.