The grounds of New Craigs Hospital in Inverness are to be transformed with a £500,000 project that it is hoped will prove therapeutic for its mental health patients.
Funding for the scheme is being provided by NHS Highland’s fund from legacies and the Green Exercise Partnership, which is a joint initiative involving NHS Health Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and Forestry Commission Scotland.
The partnership was set up in 2007 to promote better health and quality of life for people in Scotland through greater use of the outdoors for physical activity and contact with nature.
And landscape architects, with experience of designing hospital green-spaces, have now been commissioned to draw up plans for the grounds of New Craigs.
NHS Highland chief executive Elaine Mead will tell board members on Tuesday that the hospital’s status as the board’s major mental health facility means the environment needs to be “as welcoming as possible”.
And she points out that this will be beneficial when added to the other treatments and therapies provided at the site.
In a report to the meeting, Ms Mead says: “Historically, the NHS incorporated significant therapeutic use of the grounds associated with hospital sites, particularly at mental health facilities, such as the old Craig Dunain Hospital, which had extensive grounds providing opportunities for exercise and therapeutic occupation.
“The perceived value of external grounds has lessened over time into more of a maintenance necessity than an integral part of healing.”
And she points out that New Craigs holds the potential to become “an exemplar for improvements in health being facilitated by the external environment”.