Nominator Adrian Smith, Assistant Director, Unique Improvements says that patients at the Cornbrook GP Surgery in Hulme have benefited from a new wellbeing garden funded by Age Friendly Manchester and supported by local social enterprise Sow the City. The Surgery has over 13,000 patients, many of whom are socially isolated and have little access to outdoor space. The garden provides opportunity for local people to learn new skills, take part in physical exercise, get access to healthy and free food and meet new people. It brings together people of different backgrounds, and ages in meaningful activity, where they learn new skills which are then shared with family members and neighbours. Before lockdown, the outdoor space was unused and although they were aware of local social prescribing schemes, the Practice had not thought about providing activity themselves. A great video of the work can be seen here: https://youtu.be/pEJb1Z2z-U0. During lockdown, the challenge was to make sure people continued to benefit, and to maintain interest and momentum. Sow the City took the solutions online and provided webinars so people could keep growing at home. These included sessions on green wellbeing, growing mushrooms, fermented foods and urban trees. Like many small organisations, venturing online involved developing new skills. The team approached this by providing regular, weekly talks and inviting guest speakers to share expertise. The sessions are available online for people to access anytime. Prescribe a Plant was also developed as a simple way to keep up the growing activity in a safe way. Patients took home a plant to look after. As lockdown conditions patients into the activity again. Sow the City are running volunteer sessions for patients. They have fruit tree planting sessions and spring bulb planting sessions in November.
