Opening Doors to the Outdoors — Green Social Prescribing in North Wales

Opening Doors to the Outdoors (ODO) is a green social prescribing pathway run by the Welsh charity The Outdoor Partnership from Caernarfon, referring patients from GPs, community mental-health services and third-sector organisations onto a 12-week programme of weekly four-hour guided walking or climbing sessions at seven sites across North Wales (Anglesey, Caernarfon, Dolgellau, Holyhead, Porthmadog and Wrexham). It is funded through a mix of the Welsh Government's Healthy and Active Fund, Cardiff University's Accelerate Wales programme and the European Regional Development Fund, with the wider organisation also holding a £500,000 National Lottery Community Fund grant.

A peer-reviewed Social Return on Investment analysis (Poole et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2023) followed 75 participants enrolled between October 2021 and March 2022, of whom 52 (69%) completed the 12-week course. Using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and the NEF Social Trust Question, the study found improved mental wellbeing, physical activity and social trust, translating into an estimated £4.37–£5.36 of social value per £1 invested.

The same study is explicit about its limits: it used a single-arm, before-after case-study design with no control group, a small self-selected sample, and self-reported healthcare-use data subject to recall bias. Critically, it found essentially no reduction in NHS mental-health service utilisation during the evaluation window (around £1 per participant per year in modelled savings), meaning the measured value comes from wellbeing and social gains rather than demonstrated healthcare cost offsetting — the authors caution against generalising the SROI ratio beyond this pilot.

Read the full analysis: https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/news/press-releases/2022-03-03/new-report-reveals-how-530-million-investment-has-helped-put-the-great-back-into-the-great-outdoors