Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

The Coalition Government have indicated that Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNA) will not only have an ongoing role but will be central to local commissioning decisions.

 The JSNA is:
 ?a systematic method for reviewing the health and wellbeing needs of a population, leading to agreed commissioning priorities that will improve the health and wellbeing outcomes and reduce inequalities?
Department of Health, 2007, p7

Local authorities? and Primary Care Trusts have been under a statutory duty to produce a wide ranging and comprehensive JSNA since April 2008. In the Coalition Government's Health and Social Care Bill it is proposed that the JSNA will become the responsibility of the local authority convened Health and Wellbeing Boards which are being placed on a statutory footing. It's role is to become very significant with a statutory obligation that all commissioning Local Authority and NHS will be driven by the JSNA.

The JSNA is defined by the Department of Health (DH) guidance as ?a process that identifies current and future health and wellbeing needs in light of existing services, and informs future service planning taking into account evidence of effectiveness?.

The purpose of the JSNA is to provide an evidence base that covers all aspects of the local population including health, mental health, housing, education, deprivation, economy etc, which will allow decision makers to see the current areas of highest need, and how these are likely to change in the future. By identifying these diverse needs in a single resource the JSNA enables local partners to work together and coordinate their planning so that their services are better placed to meet these current and future needs. The Health and Wellbeing Boards responsibility for the JSNA signifies a 'step change' for the Boards which will include GP consortia.  In order to achieve better health and wellbeing and reduce inequality it is anticipated that the Board will require a broader range of contributors than some localities have previously involved. 

Housing related support

The inclusion of the need for housing-related support was not identified in the original JSNA guidance. The House of Commons Communities and Local Government (CLG) Select Committee enquiry recommended that the development of JSNA be accelerated as a priority in planning for the provision of Supporting People services and a reference included in the guidance.  There is still an expectation that each area will develop their own JSNA there is work being undertaken on a sector led JSNA data set directory that will detail all the evidence that should be included.

Sitra sits on the JSNA vulnerable adults, housing related support and housing need reference group as an expert in improving outcomes for vulnerable people.  This group is overseen by the DH and CLG.  The DH has a number of work streams to develop and embed more constructive engagement of commissioners in the JSNA process.

Resources

Find out more about the development programme for vulnerable adults, housing and housing related support and see some successful case studies:

Presentation on the DH work stream supporting the inclusion of housing related support in JSNA (pdf)

The DH have now produced a report on the case studies

Briefing note from Devon on Assessing the need for Accommodation and Support services

An article on Cambridgeshire?s approach to including housing related support in their JSNA was feature in the August/September 2009 Sitra bulletin

Local Government Improvement and Development web pages

The Voluntary Organisations Disability Group resources on why to get  involved in the JSNA