Anchor and community

As a Trust we work hard to improve healthcare and services every day, but there is even more we can do to support our communities to be healthier, happier and greener.

The Anchor Programme is about large organisations investing back into their communities and is a concept fully supported and endorsed by NHS England and the Health Foundation. As one of the largest employers in the south west London, developing our role as an anchor institution will enable us to understand better how our Trust can be a force for good by using our assets and influence to bring about change.

We have already begun working with health and care partners, local councils and the voluntary sector, to explore how we can reduce our environmental impact and create exciting and innovative employment, volunteering, internship and network opportunities for those we serve.

Our Better Communities Programme has provided us with the impetus to accelerate a number of priorities including:

• Building hundreds of new homes and creating a 32-acre park.
• Working with new residents at Springfield Village to create a mental health aware community through programmes like our Mental Health First Aid programme.
• Fostering skill learning through our Springfield Park social value initiative, including in grounds maintenance, event planning, catering in the café and much more.

We are committed to developing our influence as an anchor institution.

Springfield Park is a new 32-acre outdoor space in Tooting, Wandsworth. Opened in summer 2025, with a pavilion café, play area, trim trail, amphitheatre, areas for informal sport, ponds and hundreds of new trees, the park is the largest created in London since the 2012 Olympics. Springfield Park is part of the new stigma-breaking community called Springfield Village and is the latest milestone in the redevelopment of Springfield University Hospital’s Victorian-era estate.  

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Culturally Mindful is a creative health residency and training programme which bring together Global Majority artists, healthcare providers and grassroots organisations to co-design new approaches to health and wellbeing design.  

Working in partnership with Wandsworth London Borough of Culture, we are hosting two artists – Roopa Basu and Shiza Naveed – at Springfield University Hospital’s Lavendar Ward and Wandsworth Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

Roopa and Shiza will work closely with staff and patients to co-design creative health programmes, deliver inclusive and accessible art-based activities and provide space for connection, expression and healing. 

All artists who are part of Culturally Mindful have also benefited from our free Mental Health First Aid training. 

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Our Trust is a lead partner in South London Listens, a programme of work bringing the power of community organising to tackle systemic barriers to good health and wellbeing in south London communities. The programme is working to ensure:

• communities have power over the decisions that impact them.
• NHS organisations and local authorities are listening to communities and developing solutions together alongside strategic partners and allies.
• we are tackling the injustices that diminish health ad wellbeing.

South London Listens is a pan south London collaboration of the two south London ICSs, three south London mental health trusts, south London local authorities and over 150 community organisations working to prevent a mental health crisis as a result of Covid-19 and support community recovery.

With a strategic partner Citizens UK, the programme listened to over 6,000 people to develop four key priorities and a range of co-created solutions. 22 pledges were committed to by the programme partners and a 2-year action plan was launched in November 2021. This is overseen by a Taskforce chaired by Ann Beasley CBE (Chair, South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust) Sir Norman Lamb (Chair, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust) and Rev Canon Dr Rosemarie Mallett (Bishop of Croydon), alongside community leaders and representatives from the NHS and local authority partners.

As a result we have set up over 20 Be Well Mental Health Hubs in south west London, accredited as a London Living Wage organisation and published our CAMHs waiting list times.

In Summer 2023, a listening campaign was launched to work with communities to understand what is keeping individuals and/or communities from thriving. Launched in June across South London. Through our Be Well hubs and wider networks, Citizens UK community organisers listened to 4100 people across South London. We have heard from diverse communities including individuals from refugee and migrant backgrounds, ethnic minorities, disabled, Deaf and neurodiverse people, people in low-paid or insecure work, children and young people, carers and lone parents, older people and people from the LGBTQ+ community.

Following this listening campaign in November 2023, senior NHS leaders, local politicians and community groups came together to commit to a further series of pledges. The programme committed to more pledges in: work and wages; children, young people and parents; housing; mental health and social isolation; race and migration.

Climate change is real and impacting now. We are committed to delivering the net zero carbon and emission reduction agenda in the NHS. We believe that sustainable and greener actions can be taken and will have positive impacts on the care that we deliver, our ways of working and the wellbeing of our communities.

We will work collaboratively over the next three years to implement both strategic and small scale actions that will have positive impact and which build on our current success. We will integrate green and sustainability thinking into our existing practice and delivery.

Our  Trust sustainability and green plan 2025-26 to 2027-28 [pdf] 945KB lays out our vision and objectives and sets out key delivery areas to meet the Greener NHS agenda. We recognise there are challenges to be overcome but we are hopeful and optimistic about the changes we can make. Please join us on this journey.