1. Introduction

Local authorities and Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) have equal and joint duties to prepare Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) and Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategies (JLHWSs), through the health and wellbeing board.

The purpose of the JSNA and JLHWS is to identify local needs to inform strategies and services to improve the health and wellbeing of the local community and reduce inequalities for all ages.

2. Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

A JSNA is an assessment of the current and future health and social care needs of the local community. These are needs that could be met by the local system and its partners, for example the local authority, Integrated Care Board, voluntary sector or the NHS.

The JSNA is produced by the local health and wellbeing board, and is unique to the local area. The health and wellbeing board should also consider a wide range of factors that impact on their communities’ health and wellbeing, and local assets that can help to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities. JSNAs should include information and outcomes for adult safeguarding. Each local area is free to undertake the JSNA in a way best suited to its local circumstances; there is no template or format that must be used and no mandatory data set to be included.

Within South Tyneside the approach taken includes asset within any assessment carried out and is therefore referred to as the JSNAA. The process of developing the key documents focuses on specific themes or topics rather than providing one overall needs assessment for South Tyneside. This approach enables individuals to access the relevant information more easily and allows documents to be updated more frequently as well as hosted on the website with a range of links to other supporting documents.

A range of quantitative (numeric) and qualitative (non-numeric) evidence should be used in the JSNA. There are a number of data sources and tools that the health and wellbeing board may find useful for obtaining quantitative data. Qualitative information can be gathered in a variety of ways, including views collected by the local Healthwatch organisation or by local voluntary sector organisations, feedback given to local providers by service users, and views fed in as part of community participation within the JSNA and JLHWS process.

3. Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy

The JLHWS should turn the JSNA findings into clear outcomes that the health and wellbeing board wants to achieve, which will inform local commissioning, and the development of locally led initiatives that meet the outcomes agreed and the needs identified.

The JLHWS is the strategy for meeting the needs identified in the JSNA. As with JSNAs, it is produced by the health and wellbeing board, is unique to each local area, and there is no prescribed format.

However, the board must have regard to the integrated care strategy when preparing their joint local health and wellbeing strategies, as well as having regard to the NHS priorities and the statutory guidance.

The JLHWS should explain what priorities the health and wellbeing board has set in order to tackle the needs identified in the JSNA.

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