According to NHS officials, it will be ‘unlike anything seen before’. So far this year, junior doctors have gone on strike for a total of five days and – unsurprisingly – this is posing a huge challenge for the health service; and it looks set to continue. NHS national medical director, Professor Sir Stephen Powis said: “We will soon hit one million appointments rescheduled if strikes continue”. Since industrial action began in December 2022 waiting lists have hit a record high of 7.69 million people waiting for routine operations.  

Now these strikes are about pay – so you may well ask, what has this to do with The Wildlife Trusts? Well, more than you would think. No matter what our views on the strikes are, it is clear that the millions of people waiting for operations need to keep well in the meantime. It is also imperative to keep people off those waiting lists – not just during the strike action – but permanently. Sadly, at present, there are too many people who will become unwell as a result of social factors. Too many people live in polluted, nature-deprived neighbourhoods, at a great cost. In England, 9.5million households do not have nature-friendly places near home, with people from black and ethnic minority groups twice as likely to live in nature-poor neighbourhoods. 

The world around us shapes everyone’s health and wellbeing.  This is especially true of the natural world. The condition of our neighbourhoods directly affects how long people will live, and the quality of their lives. Issues like air quality, the impacts of climate change and how much nature we can enjoy on our doorsteps all impact on our health. Added to this, many preventable illnesses are caused by loneliness, social isolation or physical inactivity. This can lead to anxiety, depression, and preventable lung and heart conditions.

The Wildlife Trusts want to change this. According to recent economic analysis in the report A Natural Health Service: Improving Lives and Saving Money, specially targeted programmes run by Wildlife Trusts improved participants physical and mental health, and can generate more financial healthcare savings than the programmes cost to run. As one example: Wild at Heart run by Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust generated cost savings of £38,646 based on 82 participants over a year; or for every £1 invested, there was £1.19 of additional benefit in terms of reduced costs to the NHS.

The researchers also looked at the impact that could be achieved, if the Wild At Heart programme was delivered on a greater scale – saving £100 million for every 1.2 million people reached. (Annual cost savings of £635.6 million, for an investment of £534 million).

Now – that is just one Wildlife Trust programme. Imagine the thousands of programmes from nature organisations across the UK. Those that look after our land, our rivers, our coasts. Now throw in the fantastic organisations from creative arts, sport and physical activity sectors delivering ‘social prescribing’ at scale.  Singing has been shown to improve chronic lung conditions or help those living with dementia. Walking for health programmes deliver a huge number of health benefits, community cooking groups connect the food people grow with a social activity. Together, we can help people stay well, and slow the flow of people heading unnecessarily towards the NHS.  

We need policies that enable shared investment from government departments concerned with housing, employment, community cohesion, transport and culture. This would create the ‘engine room’ for community-based health services and would also enable private, public and philanthropic investment at a local level.

Only with more forward-thinking policies are we going to be able to give the NHS a fighting chance. It is time for a new approach.