ESTATE PLANNING
Care Partnership). The intent is that Green Social Prescribing will allow rural and urban areas alike to support patients, and help those living in deprived areas, people with mental health conditions, and those experiencing distress, loneliness, or anxiety, to exploit the proven benefits of regular acess to green spaces.
Digital and local healthcare hubs Illness prevention is also key, and the introduction of digital and local healthcare hubs could encourage a ‘digital first’ approach that brings healthcare to the home and makes it fully accessible. With the increase in vacant space on our high streets, there is an opportunity for these spaces to become local hubs that not only drive footfall through the high street, but also link healthcare to entertainment and leisure facilities promoted in the town centre. This could be anything from libraries, to community-specific activity spaces based on real need, and not assumed. These space requirements can be identified through existing embedded service-providers, for example food banks.
Inspiring a healthier community
Can architecture and public realm design inspire a healthier community? One example: originally intended as the development of a new health campus in Surrey, research into the site, town, and its inhabitants, led to a much more comprehensive development opportunity incorporating the library, community services, new socially supportive residential apartments, and public realm transformation. This project has the opportunity to transform a tired high street, and capitalise on improvements being made to one of the town’s core offerings to encourage a comprehensive redevelopment which will create a new model for social wellbeing and community wellness.
Neil Orpwood said: “Our work with Surrey Heartlands CCG to review the wider opportunities that new health and wellbeing centres can provide has led to detailed research into various sites, towns, and communities, to provide much more comprehensive development opportunities, incorporating libraries, community services, teaching kitchens, new socially supportive residential apartments, and connected transformation of public realm.”
44 Health Estate Journal April 2022
Supported living Supported living could also relieve pressure on hospitals through the development of town centre living that is focused on the elderly (but not exclusively) to provide alternative solutions to them remaining in hospital beds. By creating different levels of support to allow for ‘right-sizing’, as well as full-time care, these facilities should be located within easy walking distance of the town centre to allow residents to choose their level of independence. This shouldn’t mean the provision of dedicated ‘old people’s homes’, but more the supply of cross- generational affordable rent, adaptable and flexible flats. They could be available to key workers, supported family living, and elderly care alike, with good access to not only the new local healthcare facilities, but also to green space and work. Let’s also de-stigmatise medical
treatment through co-location, by creating links with local community facilities to remove the perceived barriers around healthcare. This has been achieved with various levels of success in health centres across the UK, but invariably still provides a place for treatment only. However, the best examples work when clinics have been integrated in easy-to-access and stimulating environments (such as the successful Ashford and St Peter’s Hospital
NHS Trust Outpatient Physiotherapy Clinic relocating to the River Bourne Club in Chertsey). Easy links for the public via proximity to fitness facilities and wellbeing centres, with a focus on rehabilitation, should be considered, as should the promotion of co-location across the town through public realm intervention and design.
More accessible community settings This moving of outpatient clinics from hospitals to more accessible community settings is already being considered across some councils, integrating primary and community care, and delivering a new range of buildings to improve and replace health centre facilities. Key though is to not miss the opportunity to provide services that could include links to wider existing community services, schools, and colleges, encouraging an understanding that health is all of our business, not just a concern and focus for healthcare professionals. Encouraging children to understand the impact of nutrition, mental health, and exercise, on their wellbeing, through direct involvement with these new community health nodes, will make a huge difference to all their lives.
Healthy transport Healthy transport is an obvious solution
In one recent instance, HLM saw ‘an exciting regeneration opportunity which looked to reinvigorate a disconnected town centre area, and re-purpose the Town Hall, to provide a collaborative workspace for the Council alongside other partners and cultural institutions’.
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