Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

Tickets are now available for this year’s NHS Forest conference - Nature at the Heart of Sustainable Healthcare. Full speaker line up below.

Date: 15 October 2026
Time: 10am-4pm
Location: online
Tickets are £5 or email [email protected] for a free ticket. Money raised from the tickets supports CSH’s Green Space for Health programme so please consider buying a ticket if you can.

Link in comments to find out more and book tickets.

This year the conference will examine the impact green spaces have on healthcare sites. Making nature available to patients and staff has a positive impact, but sometimes healthcare teams can lack the hard evidence to take to policy makers and senior leaders to make change happen. Our speakers all have experience of how to make the case for nature and health and will be sharing their invaluable knowledge at this year’s conference.

We are very pleased to be welcoming Dr Radha Modgil back as the chair again this year.

Our keynote speaker will be Jinny Blom. Jinny trained and practised as a transpersonal psychologist and psychotherapist, working for many years in mental health. She is now an award-winning garden designer and Artist in Residence for Chelsea & Westminster Hospital.

Session speakers include:
🌱 Gareth Howatson – Natural Health Service Co-ordinator, Mersey Forest
🌱 Dr Jordan Tsigarides – Senior Clinical Fellow in Rheumatology (Cambridge University Hospitals) and Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia
🌱 Graham Pike – Lead Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) nurse and Deputy Director of IPC at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, as well as coordinator for the Infection Prevention Society sustainability group
🌱 Isabela Souza and Dr Duika L. Burges Watson – Isabela is the Monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) consultant for the Healthy by Nature programme . She will be speaking with CSH Nature Recovery Ranger Dr Duika Burges Watson.
🌱 Ian Stenton, Head of Estates Sustainability at NHS England
🌱 Heather Jones – PhD, RN Nurse educator
🌱 Penny Marno – Senior Specialist (Health), Natural England
🌱 Katie Storey and Robert Graham – Katie is the Assistant Sustainability Manager at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. She will be speaking with Robert Graham, Head of Bright Charity
🌱 Lucy Kennedy - CSH Senior Nature Recovery Ranger

Link in comments to find out more and book tickets.

At the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, we have trained thousands of healthcare professionals to understand the links between sustainability and health, improve the efficiency and quality of care, meet net zero commitments and support patient needs. Courses combine expert input with practical tools and we support participants to develop their own projects.

Upcoming courses and dates (booking link in the comments)

🌱 Sustainable Innovation for Nurses and Midwives
Tuesday 8 September 2026 10:00 – 12:00
Monday 19 October 15:00 – 17:00

🌱 Sustainability Analysis and Quality Improvement in Nursing and Midwifery
Monday 24 August 2026 09:00-13:00
Thursday 24 September 2026 13:00-17:00
Monday 16 November 2026 09:00 – 13:00

🌱 Sustainable Healthcare Cross-Speciality Course (with specialist course conten also available for Anaesthetics, Child Health, Dentistry, Mental Healthcare, Primary Care, Respiratory Care)
Tuesday 15 September 9.00-13.00 BST
Wednesday 7 October 9.00-13.00 BST
Wednesday 11 November 13.00-17.00 GMT
Monday 14 December 9.00-13.00 GMT

🌱 Green Space and Health
Wednesday 16 September 9.00-13.00

🌱 Carbon Footprinting for Healthcare
Thursday 3 September 2026 8.00-12.00
Wednesday 18 November 2026 13.00-17.00

🌱 Sustainability in Quality Improvement (SusQI)
Thursday 17 September 2026 8:00-12:00
Thursday 19 November 2026 13:00-17:00

🌱 Teaching Sustainability in Quality Improvement Improvement (SusQI)
Thursday 3 September 2026 14.00-16.30
Thursday 3 December 2026 9.00-11.30

🌱 Public Health Leadership for Sustainability
Tuesday 13 October 2026 9.00-13.00

Join our team as a Nature Recovery Ranger / Senior Nature Recovery Ranger in London. As part of our Healthy by Nature programme, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, we are looking for either a Nature Recovery Ranger or Senior Nature Recovery Ranger to join our team.
The successful candidate will work across healthcare sites within Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, supporting patients, staff and local communities to benefit from stronger connections with nature. This is a unique role that combines community engagement, green space enhancement, food growing, health and wellbeing activities, and partnership working. You’ll collaborate with clinical teams, sustainability leads, volunteers and community organisations to explore how nature can be embedded as a meaningful part of healthcare. Link to job description in the first comments

Last chance to submit your site for an NHS Forest award. Nominations close on 9 August! Our free awards are a great way to recognise your team's hard work and share your successes with the wider healthcare green spaces community. Link in first comment.

Recent revelations about the cost of personal protective equipment (PPE) wasted during the Covid-19 pandemic are almost hard to comprehend. The Covid inquiry estimates that two thirds of the £14.9 billion spent by the UK Government on PPE between 2020 and 2022 went on supplies that were either unusable or out of date. Waste on this scale is appalling but the truth is that this was not a one-off mistake unique to the pandemic – rather, it was a symptom of an ongoing failure to procure and use medical supplies in a way that makes best use of public money.

Read CSH Policy Lead, Naylor's blog on healthcare's worrying dependence on disposable products. Link in first comment (takes you to the blog on the CSH website).

Great to see Matt is settling into his role as our Nature Recovery Ranger at Tameside & Glossop IC FT and Stockport NHS FT thanks to support from the Community Lottery Fund.

Our free tree planting programme for healthcare sites is open again this year. Healthcare sites across England, Scotland and Wales are eligible. Apply now on a first come, first served basis. https://nhsforest.org/green-your-site/tree-planting/

Do you know a healthcare site (big or small) that deserves some recognition for its green spaces? Nominate them for an NHS Forest Award! Nominations are open now until 4 August. https://nhsforest.org/nhs-forest-award-nomination/

The Nature’s Rights Bill has its Second Reading in the House of Lords today. If passed, the Bill will recognise nature as a legal subject, create a duty of care towards nature, and shift decision-making upstream so ecological harm is prevented before it happens. CSH has signed the civil society statement ahead of the reading as we support legal protection for nature. Find out more and endorse the bill: https://www.natures-rights.org