What is a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment?

The purpose of JSNAs is to improve the health and wellbeing of the local community and reduce inequalities for all ages. JSNAs assess the current and future health and social care needs of the local community. These are needs that could be met by the local authority, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), the wider NHS or the voluntary and community sector. This analysis of needs is used to help to determine what actions local authorities, the local NHS and other partners need to take to meet health and social care needs, and to address the wider determinants that impact on health and wellbeing.

Who is responsible for the JSNA?

The JSNA is the responsibility of the health and wellbeing board. The board is made up of representatives from the Clinical Commissioning Group, the local authority, the health services, other statutory bodies, community and voluntary groups.

What does the JSNA look like?

The JSNA combines a key dataset, which shows how areas compares with London and England across a wide range of indicators related to health and wellbeing, with a small number of chapters on key topic areas.

How are the key topics selected for the needs assessments?

The key topics are decided by the health and wellbeing board based on recommendations from the JSNA steering group. Stakeholders and partners in the local authority, the health service, the voluntary and community sector and members of the public, are invited to propose topics which are prioritised against a range of criteria.

Who carries out the needs assessments?

The needs assessments are led by subject leads and public health specialists working in partnership with contributions from a range of people with experience in the particular topic area.

What happens to the recommendations of the JSNA?

Each topic based JSNA chapter is sent to local health and social care commissioners. They are asked to make an initial response to the recommendations. Commissioning plans and strategies can be informed by JSNA chapter. Commissioners use the needs assessment to help them make judgements about where to prioritise limited resources. It may not be possible to take forward all the recommendations made in a JSNA chapter, but the information is critical for their decision making processes. JSNA chapters also make recommendations for service providers. Whilst providers are not formally asked to respond, they are sent the recommendations and asked to take them into consideration.

The JSNA uses these webpages to publish its reports.