What If Nature Was Part of Cancer Care?

I am absolutely delighted to contribute this blog for the PERCIE and APRIN network on the ERASMUS+ project, Social Prescribing and Civic Engagement (SPACE), an exciting EU funded programme, exploring how green prescribing can support people living with cancer and beyond.

This blog I confess, is also in part, a call to action for anyone who believes the NHS matters. It therefore reflects my personal views and not necessarily those of the EU or SPACE partner organisations. We need to move from disease management to health creation and embrace community assets. We need to empower staff and patients alike. And we need to embed green prescribing into the future of care.

That is why SPACE is not only about recovery. It is about reimagining healthcare and education. It offers an opportunity to support people rebuilding their lives after life-changing treatment, whilst also helping us rethink prevention, workforce education and sustainability.

The context is stark.

One in two people will now experience cancer in their lifetime, and early-onset cancer rates have alarmingly risen by 24%. This deeply concerning trend is not just about biology. Social, environmental and structural factors play a significant part.

We are also currently witnessing disinvestment in social prescribing in primary care in England, despite clear contractual commitments requiring patient access. This sits uneasily alongside a wider chaotic and incoherent NHS restructure feeding growing workforce burnout and delays in treatment. At a time when we need long-term thinking and system stability, support for preventative, community-based approaches are being undermined.

We are at a watershed.

Social prescribing and in this context green prescribing is not a ‘nice to have’. It is essential if we are serious about sustainability and reducing health inequalities. What is the point in treating patients and sending them back to the conditions that made them ill in the first place?

Green prescribing in the SPACE context offers something different. It connects people to nature, harnesses community assets and volunteering opportunities to promote civic engagement and place making, whilst directing energy at workforce education.

It will support physical, emotional and psychological recovery in a cancer rehabilitation context. And it addresses another urgent reality, the climate emergency, because we know when people engage with nature, they are more likely to develop pro-environmental behaviour. This is important because the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Green prescribing therefore creates benefits for both people and the planet.

But securing this future requires change — particularly in workforce education.

Our current models of education and healthcare often reinforce inequality. Too frequently, systems are paternalistic and reactive, focused on disease management rather than health creation. Patients and students become passive recipients rather than active partners.

Although education often claims to be the great leveller, on its own it can simply reproduce inequality as efficiently as it can reduce it. We need to disrupt the endemic ‘banking model of education’ (Paulo Freire) in which teachers simply deposit facts rather than focusing on creating inquisitive beings with a thirst for learning and aptitude for critical thinking. Education all too often becomes an instrument of control not empowerment. Meanwhile, structural inequalities mean postcode, background and circumstance continue to shape and determine outcomes and destiny.

These inequities are not inevitable. 

What if we invested in community-led processes that empower people to take control of their health, learning and environment? What if prevention, recovery and civic participation were woven together and support a new order?

That is where SPACE comes in.

The project brings together social prescribing and volunteering to support people with cancer and rehabilitation needs.

It works across sectors and countries to:

• Promote and extend shared understanding of green social prescribing.

• Strengthen education and training for health, social care and rehabilitation professionals.

• Engage NGOs, civil society and policymakers to influence practice and cancer policy.

• Co-produce adaptable models integrating volunteering into social prescribing, particularly for cancer recovery.

• Increase awareness of the value of community gardens and urban volunteering as part of rehabilitation.

Led by the Centre for European Volunteering (Belgium) and delivered with seven partner organisations, SPACE aims to build capacity, confidence and collaboration across Europe — contributing to the EU and UK Cancer Missions.

I am proud to represent the UK for the SPACE project and welcome conversations and collaborations which enable scale and spread in the UK and beyond. I am particularly interested how we build coalitions of interest and exploit policy intersection within health and across other sectors. We can only make real change happen by working together.