At NTW Solutions we are working with our parent organisation, Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust to plant a total of one thousand trees during the month of April 2021, at four mental health and disability hospitals across the north of England.
The trees supplied by the NHS Forest (run by the centre for sustainable Healthcare and funded by the Green Recovery Challenge Fund), will help the Trust towards reducing its carbon footprint to net zero by 2040.
The trees also feed into the Trust/NTW Solutions Green Plan, to be launched by the Trust later this month. As part of the wider strategy for sustainability, the Trust is aiming to improve the existing use of green space for biodiversity as well as for staff and service users.
Once mature, the thousand trees have the potential to absorb twenty-one tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year, as well as providing a habitat for biodiversity across the sites and creating wildlife corridors to connect existing planted areas.

Keith Johnson planting trees on Friday 9 April at St Nicholas Hospital, Gosforth.
We want to make the most of our green spaces for service users, carers, staff and local communities to enjoy, encouraging biodiversity and connection with nature. As we walk around our hospital sites we can see so much potential for enhancing what is already there and we hope that this tree planting project will be the first of many such initiatives.
Sarah Neil, Sustainability Officer at NTW Solutions Limited