Nature Recovery Rangers – Healthy by Nature
What are Healthcare Nature Recovery Rangers?
A growing body of evidence highlights the fundamental role nature plays in supporting health and wellbeing for all. Access to green spaces can help mitigate the effects of income-related health inequalities by encouraging more frequent physical activity, such as walking, and helping people feel happier and more energised. These benefits are crucial not only for preventative healthcare—reducing the risk of illness—but also for therapeutic care, aiding in the management of existing health conditions.
Our Healthy by Nature project supports communities by enabling them to derive health, wellbeing, social and skill building benefits. Uniquely, our project activities also enable people in hospital, or who need frequent hospital visits – who may otherwise be marginalised – to benefit from connecting with nature. Additionally, by involving community members in nature-based activities, our project also supports people to stay healthier in the first place.
Our Nature Recovery Rangers work with NHS partners at healthcare sites to help integrate nature into community engagement, patient care and staff wellbeing, and to improve the quality of green spaces and biodiversity to benefit communities. Their aim is to maximise the role that these green spaces play in the prevention of health issues, supporting recovery and the creation of a healthier environment.
Healthy by Nature
In 2025 we joined forces with nine NHS trusts. The Healthy by Nature project will see these NHS trusts work with us to support the transformation of hospital grounds into thriving green spaces. The project has been made possible thanks to funding from the National Lottery Community Fund.
It is hoped the project will benefit over 86,000 community members across the nine trusts by connecting people with nature at around 39 NHS sites.
We currently have five active rangers. Find out more about their work:
The pilot
Before the Healthy by Nature project, the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare ran a pilot project across sites in Bristol, Liverpool, London and Newcastle. We were able to learn a great deal about how to effectively embed rangers into healthcare sites. Read more about the pilot.