A pioneering project to improve the mental and physical health of NHS patients through gardening is set to close.

Tonbridge Garden Therapy operates at an allotment plot off Waveney Road in Tonbridge.

The closure is not due to a shortage of demand for the scheme, but because funding has been cut off by its Primary Care Network.

The project was set up by Dr Richard Claxton, a GP at the Warders Medical Centre in Tonbridge more than a year ago.

Dr Claxton confesses to being a passionate gardener himself, even volunteering at Sissinghurst Castle Gardens when he is not working in his own garden.

He explained: “Primary Care Networks are an initiative of the government to encourage GP surgeries to work more collaboratively together, sharing skills and personnel, rather than remaining in our own silos.

“My own practice is linked in with surgeries in Hildenborough, Hadlow, Paddock Wood and East Peckham, and between us, we have around 64,000 patients.

“The board of the Primary Care Network (PCN) knew of my interest in gardening and asked me to establish a therapy garden.

“There are therapy gardens run by charities, but we believe this was the first to be financed by the NHS.”

Dr Claxton continued: “The government gives the PCNs money under what is known as the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme to finance link workers to provide additional services to the practices.

“The Tonbridge Therapy Garden has two link workers, who have been organising two two-hour sessions a week.

“Gardening therapy can help reduce anxiety and depression as well as bringing the physical benefits of exercise.”

“Our gardeners – we call them that rather than patients – come for a 10-week course.

“Many suffer from depression or anxiety, others have physical or learning disabilities or autism, but they all benefit.”

By reconnecting the gardeners with the source of food, Dr Claxton said the therapy had provided additional benefits helping gardeners with diabetes or who were overweight to move away from eating fast food to instead preparing their own more healthy meals.

Surpluses from the allotment have also benefitted the wider community as they have been donated to the food bank at the Tonbridge Baptist Church.

Dr Claxton said: “It’s been very successful. We have just increased the number of sessions to six a week and, with the help of Paddock Wood Town Council, we were preparing to open a second therapy allotment in Paddock Wood at the Memorial Field.

“But suddenly, in the last 10 days, the board of the PCN has decided to cut the funding for our two link workers and to spend the money elsewhere.

“It means that Kate and Sonya, our two link workers, will lose their jobs at the end of March and the therapy garden, instead of expanding, will likely close.

“It’s devastating.”

Dr Claxton said he had spent last week desperately trying to find an alternative source of funding to keep the garden going, but sadly so far without success.

He said: “In the past, we’ve been generously supported with gifts of equipment and such like from businesses in the horticulture sector, so I have turned to them for help as well as appealing to the NHS, but so far I haven’t been able to find a sponsor.

This can’t be the end of the story

“Evidence suggests that garden therapy is just as effective as 10 weeks of cognitive behavioural therapy for those suffering mild anxiety, and there are other advantages – the benefit to biodiversity and the reduction in food miles.”

Anyone who can help sponsor the therapy scheme so that the garden can stay open should contact Dr Claxton by email to richard.claxton@NHS.net

Dr Claxton said: “I’m so proud of what we've achieved. We created a model that was beginning to have a real impact and one that was designed to be easily reproduced across the country.

“This can't be the end of the story.

“There has to be a workable way that the NHS can provide nature-based therapies to help our population with the multitude of problems we all face.”

The Tonbridge Primary Care Network said: “The Tonbridge Therapy Garden has been funded since July 2022 and we would like to thank Dr Claxton for his work on the initiative during this time.

“Unfortunately, it has been necessary to review all of our spend to make sure we are focusing on the areas our patients tell us are most important to them.

“The practices that make up our PCN (Hadlow Medical Centre, Hildenborough and Tonbridge Medical Group, Tonbridge Medical Group, Woodlands Health Centre and Warders Medical Centre) reviewed our existing services in light of both current financial pressures and patient priorities.

“We have made the difficult decision to move funding to services that immediately support patient access to appointments, the visiting of housebound patients and those that reduce A&E attendance.”