The Story

The Dundee Green Health Partnership was launched in April 2018 aiming to connect people with the outdoors for physical, mental and social wellbeing, by working in partnership with Dundee City Council, NHS Tayside, the Third Sector and communities. In order to achieve this Green Health Prescriptions were developed and integrated within the NHS Tayside, focussing on the Dundee service, in order to allow healthcare professionals to refer patients to nature-based activities - outdoor physical activity groups within the local community.

As there were many local nature-based activities already, it became apparent that certain groups of people were less able to participate in the groups due to their conditions and especially cycling activities were less likely to be accessible for all.

Through focus groups with potential service users we discovered that many people would like to participate in cycling as a means of travel but also for their health, however normal bicycles were not suitable for them. A variety of things can make cycling inaccessible such as balance or mobility issues, arthritis, chronic pain, the need for a mobility aid, lack of confidence and having never learnt how to cycle. We tried several adaptive bikes and found that for our focus group electric tricycles (eTrikes) were the best. The three wheels make them stable, so balance or the worry of falling is no longer an issue. The electric boost helps those less able to get moving and also helps with the occasional hill. The electric boost can also be increased so that those suffering from chronic pain can be physically active without having to put a lot of effort in to get moving.

Thus ReDiscover Dundee was developed with potential service users, to enable even more people to become active and make the shift to active transport in their day to day.

We connected this project to the NHS by integrating it in our Green Health Prescribing pathway, so that clinicians across Dundee are able to refer people.