This Guide focuses on the outdoor spaces around all types of healthcare facilities. It advocates a holistic approach to their design, seeing both indoor and outdoor greenspaces as equally important for health and well-being.

This Practice Guide will assist directors of facilities, estate managers, capital strategic planners, policymakers: in short everyone interested in health improvement and patient care, whether dealing directly with patients or managing grounds. By adopting this design guidance, NHS teams will be able to create, transform and revitalise their outdoor estates with respect to the human experience, encouraging greater use of the outdoors by patients, visitors and staff alike. These environments will provide a positive distraction from treatment and a therapeutic alternative to hospital buildings: quiet reflective spaces free from the clinical environment where patients can convalesce and recover in peaceful surroundings.