Valuing the benefits provided by the NHS outdoor estate in Scotland
*NEW WEBINAR DATE – 12th February 2025*
The NHS in Scotland own a considerable outdoor greenspace estate across 14 Health Boards, 7 special Health Boards and Public Health Scotland. The estate provides a range of benefits to patients, staff and the people who live around them. For example, they sequester carbon, take up air pollutants, and provide habitat for biodiversity. Vitally they also provide physical and mental health benefits. The importance of natural capital in delivering such health benefits is recognised by NHS Scotland in its Climate Emergency and Sustainability Strategy (2022-26). As well as actions to address climate change impacts, to achieve net zero carbon, and to enhance biodiversity, it also sets goals to manage the NHS outdoor estate as a public asset for improvements in public health, and reduction of health inequities.
Public Health Scotland and NatureScot have been working with Scottish Health Boards through the Green Exercise Partnership and four NHS Greenspace for Health Partnerships to help deliver infrastructure improvements and activate the outdoor estate. There is also an initiative to create a geospatial data base of the natural capital assets of the NHS Scotland outdoor estate. However, the remaining challenge is how to identify, measure and value these benefits and the costs of releasing and developing these existing and potential benefits in future. Natural Capital Solutions were commissioned by NatureScot and Public Health Scotland to consider the development of a tool or set of tools that can quantify and value the health and well-being benefits related to the use of the NHS outdoor estate.
In this webinar, Alison Holt, Director of Natural Capital Solutions, will present the outcomes of the survey of how Scotland’s outdoor NHS estates are used, the conceptual development behind the exploration of the valuation of the health and wellbeing benefits that flow from the estate, the findings of a review of existing metrics used to value these benefits, and describe the framework and recommendations developed as part of the project for the evaluation and valuation of health and wellbeing benefits.