What are they?

As of April 1st 2008, a duty has been placed on upper-tier/unitary local authorities and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to carry out Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs). This involves identifying the health and well being needs and inequalities of the local population, including both current and future needs. In the short term (3-5 years) JSNAs will inform and Sustainable Community Strategies and Local Area Agreements , and in the longer-term (5-10 years) they will inform strategic planning.

JSNAs and Local Area Agreements

Once the JSNA has identified the health and well-being needs and inequalities of a local population, the findings will be fed into the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP). The LSP, through the Sustainable Community Strategy and Local Area Agreement, will determine the shared targets to meet these needs.

The JSNAs will also identify priorities for commissioning. Local partnerships should set out explicitly how they are going to prioritise based on the information contained within the JSNA.

Who is involved?

The duty of JSNA on upper-tier/unitary local authorities and PCTs is set out in The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act (2007) . The Director of Public Health, Director of Adult Social Services and the Director of Children’s Services, working closely with Directors of Commissioning and Finance, will lead JSNAs. Most Directors of Public Health are jointly appointed and this will facilitate the process by working across health and local government. PCT Boards must be involved in the process and ensure that the JSNA is used and understood at a senior governance level. PCTs should feed into the JSNAs for the local authority area(s) in which the PCT geographical boundary falls.

Community engagement is an essential component of JSNAs. Partners have a duty to involve patients, service-users, carers and providers, including third and private sectors and the statutory partners in the LSP. The Department of Health’s Guidance on JSNAs states that there should be a particular focus on the views of vulnerable people and hard to reach groups, those with complex medical and social care needs and those experiencing exclusion. These groups are more likely to suffer from poor health, well-being and inequalities, and their engagement with JSNA will best shape services to meet their needs.

Homelessness organisations have valuable experience in identifying need within these groups and will be able to feed in to JSNAs qualitative data and case studies of homeless people’s experiences of health and social care.

How to get involved

Local authorities and PCTs are at different stages of implementing their JSNA. Some are still doing initial planning and data collection and are not yet engaging with the community, whereas others may already be consulting with third sector and community organisations. Whatever stage your area is at, now is the time to make your voice heard and make it clear that your organisation has a valuable source of data on the needs of vulnerable people to inform your JSNA. What information you can use will depend on your local circumstances, but below are some examples of potential sources of qualitative and quantitative data:

• Supporting People (SP) client record data
• SP outcomes data
• Internal client monitoring data
• Case studies of homeless people’s experiences of health and social care
• The Older Homeless Needs Audit data - This methodology was developed by Homeless Link's Coalition on Older Homelessness to measure the numbers and support needs of older people in hostels and on the streets. Information on the audit and a report from those carried out in Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton,Westminster and Blackburn is available through our older homeless people's pages