How Forestry England’s Virtual Forest Hub is Opening Access to Nature for All – and Why That Matters for Mental Health Design
Spending time among trees. Feeling sunlight stream through a canopy.
Hearing birdsong or a breeze rustling through leaves.
These moments in nature aren’t just pleasant – they’re powerful.
Evidence consistently shows that connecting with natural environments supports our mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
But what happens when people can’t get outside?
Whether due to illness, disability, isolation, or hospitalisation, not everyone has access to the natural world. That reality was a driving force behind Forestry England’s pioneering Virtual Forest Hub, an online platform designed to bring the rhythm and sensory richness of the forest to wherever you are.
Developed by Forestry England and led by Wellbeing Projects Manager Ellen Devine, the initiative was inspired by both research and Ellen’s own personal recovery journey.
As someone who once found comfort in small glimmers of nature during long periods in clinical care, Ellen saw firsthand how even a brief encounter with green space, whether real or imagined, could bring calm, orientation, and hope.
“We know that being in nature supports wellbeing, but there are so many barriers to getting there,” says Ellen. “That’s why we set out to create a resource that could meet people where they are, whether in a hospital, at home, or in a hospice.”
What Is the Virtual Forest Hub?
Launched by Forestry England, the hub serves as a digital gateway to England’s woodlands. It’s not just one experience, it’s a whole forest of options.
Visitors can:
- Take immersive 360° virtual tours of forest trails and landscapes
- Watch forest bathing videos designed for calming sensory focus
- Enjoy guided yoga and meditation sessions filmed in natural settings
- Listen to nature soundscapes and podcasts exploring forest life
- Explore the Secret Sounds of Trees, captured through sensitive microphones
- Download creative wellbeing activities, from poetry prompts to nature art
- Record their thoughts in a printable wellbeing journal
Whether someone prefers a gentle voice-led meditation or the quiet act of drawing forest textures from memory, the range of content speaks to diverse needs, moods, and levels of engagement.
“Some days, a full 360° experience might be overwhelming. Other days, just hearing birdsong or seeing a quiet woodland path is exactly what someone needs,” Ellen explains. “It’s about creating choice and accessibility.”
Why This Matters for Mental Health Design
For those working in healthcare estates, architectural planning, or product innovation, virtual nature may initially appear as a wellbeing addition rather than a design essential. However, the evidence increasingly suggests that access to natural elements, whether real or virtual, is associated with improved mood, reduced stress, and even shorter hospital stays.
Research highlights that incorporating nature into mental health environments can support psychological recovery for service users, staff, and visitors alike, making it a vital part of therapeutic design, not an optional extra.
Spaces that support recovery must consider the lived experience of patients and staff. We know from our Design with People in Mind series, including The Nature Issue, that even passive access to nature, through views, light, sounds, and imagery, can reduce anxiety, improve sleep, and shorten hospital stays.
This is echoed in Ellen’s professional and personal experience:
“You can have the best care team in the world, but if the environment feels stark, windowless, and disconnected from the outside world, it impacts recovery,” she says. “Nature is not a luxury. It’s a basic need.”
The virtual forest hub provides a bridge, something we can build into environments even when actual access to nature is limited. For patients in windowless rooms, sensory-seclusion spaces, or long-term care, it offers grounding. For designers, architects, and estate leads, it provides a scalable, evidence-informed tool to enhance therapeutic environments with minimal resource demands.
From Hospice Rooms to Virtual Wards
The hub has already been adopted in settings ranging from hospices to virtual hospital wards. Ellen and the Forestry England team collaborated with Dorothy House Hospice to pilot the use of VR headsets, enabling patients to ‘step into’ the forest from their beds. Other teams are using soundscapes and creative prompts in stroke rehabilitation and occupational therapy.
These examples demonstrate the potential for virtual nature not only to provide comfort but also to aid recovery and regulation.
Looking ahead, Ellen hopes for deeper collaboration across the health, design and nature sectors. “This could go anywhere,” she says. “With the right support, these resources could be integrated into digital wards, mental health trusts, staff break rooms, anywhere that wellbeing matters.”
A Shared Vision
For the Design In Mental Health Network, the synergy is clear. Like our charity, the Forestry England team believes in designing with people in mind.
This includes people who may be anxious, lonely, or facing long-term health journeys, and whose environments must meet emotional as well as clinical needs.
Ellen’s dual insight, working in wellbeing innovation while also carrying lived experience of mental health care, grounds the virtual forest hub in both empathy and evidence.
It’s a reminder that therapeutic design isn’t just about infrastructure. It’s about imagination. And inclusion. And recognising that healing, too, can begin with a small sensory shift.
A Shared Vision
Visit the Forestry England Virtual Forest Hub and discover how digital nature can support real-world wellbeing.
Do you want to understand more about how nature impacts mental health design? Read our companion article, Healing Through Nature: Ellen’s Story, exploring the lived experience behind this work.
Join the Movement: Bringing Nature to Mental Health Environments
Whether you’re designing spaces, managing estates, providing clinical care, or bringing lived experience to the table, you play a crucial role in reshaping how we integrate nature into mental health environments.
If you’re a healthcare estates professional looking to enhance your environments with evidence-based, therapeutic tools, Forestry England’s Virtual Forest Hub offers an accessible, scalable solution. It’s already making a difference in virtual wards and hospices and could support your goals around patient wellbeing and staff safety.
If you’re an architect, designer, or artist, the hub offers inspiration on how sensory and digital elements can be integrated into therapeutic environments. From immersive visuals to soundscapes and forest bathing, this is a toolkit for deeper, empathy-led design.
If you’re a clinician or mental health practitioner, this is an opportunity to bring the healing potential of nature into care settings where time, pressure, and design constraints often limit access to green space.
If you’re a Lived Experience Expert, your insights are vital. Nature has played a decisive role in many recovery journeys, and your voice can help guide how we design spaces that support others. Contact Us today if you’d like to learn more about being involved>
If you’re a supplier or technology innovator, we invite you to explore how digital nature can integrate into your offerings for healthcare environments. There’s enormous potential to co-create solutions that combine safety, creativity, and care.
Together, let’s make nature, real or virtual, not just an optional extra, but a core part of mental health design.
Members: Access the Nature Issue of Design with People In Mind book.
Let’s keep asking brave questions, sharing what works (and what doesn’t), and designing with purpose.
