Cheshire East Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA)

Health and Wellbeing Boards have a duty to produce a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment for their area.

The JSNA identifies health and social care needs, how well these are being met and opportunities for improvement to inform decision-making.

The purpose of the JSNA is to assess need across Cheshire East. The JSNA is apolitical and its recommendations are not constrained by budget requirements.

Our reviews into particular health and wellbeing challenges

The JSNA work programme also includes a range of reviews into particular health and wellbeing challenges, that can be searched for via the search box on this page, or can be accessed via the links below. These four topic areas are also the four broad outcomes of our Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy / Place Plan (PDF, 6.58MB). 

• Healthier places
• Starting well: healthy happy children
• Mental wellbeing: healthy minds in adulthood
• Ageing well

Developing the JSNA

Health and Wellbeing Boards have a duty to produce a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) for their area. The “Statutory Guidance on Joint Strategic Needs Assessments and Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategies” published by the Department of Health in March 2013 outlines the required scope of JSNAs; to identify health and social care needs that can be met or affected by the local authority (Cheshire East Council) in collaboration with the NHS.

The JSNA is made up of separate sections and the creation and updating of these sections is prioritised in line with the JSNA work programme. The work programme aims to ensure that JSNA developments align to commissioner priorities, planning and implementation timescales, ensuring that JSNA content is useful and that its development can be integrated into commissioner-provider cycles. There will not be a scheduled review and refresh of all JSNA content.

The JSNA is a useful resource base for a wide range of partners and the public. The benefits of the JSNA include:

• facilitating partnership working by combining differing professional and organisational perspectives to support a holistic view of individuals, families and communities and provide new insights
• identifying and sharing information about local community assets to support commissioners and providers in developing community resilience
• enabling commissioners to identify priorities for action based on the balance of different needs

To achieve these benefits, the production of Cheshire East’s JSNA content is guided by the following principles:

• Key stakeholders (subject matter experts, including communities/service users) will work collaboratively and actively participate in JSNA content production
• Levels of detailed analysis may differ across different organisational boundaries (e.g. more detailed analysis may be undertaken for specific geographical areas)
• The allocation of resources to creating/developing JSNA sections should be proportionate to the benefits of enhanced intelligence for evidence-based decision making

The current processes for determining the JSNA work programme

1. Collation of proposals and suggestions throughout the year by  JSNA steering group members
2. Opportunity to propose additional suggestions in December/January
3. Process of prioritisation of areas of work through consensus building in the  JSNA steering group with input from  VCFSE representatives. The number of agreed reviews will depend on the capacity within the Public Health Intelligence team and other  JSNA working group members in relation to other work areas
4. Approval of the work programme by the Executive Director for Adults, Health and Integration or Director of Public Health
5. Presentation of the work programme to the  HWBB as part of quarterly/six-monthly updates

Proposed new approach to  JSNA review approval

1. Approval by  JSNA review working group
2. Review and feedback from the Public Health Senior Management Team
3. Approval and feedback of final draft by  JSNA steering group
4. HWB  delegated approval by Executive Director for Adults, Health and Integration or Director of Public Health
   • Presentation to relevant Council audiences
   • Presentation of recommendations to the HWB during quarterly/six-monthly updates
   • Presentation to relevant Place audiences
5. Publication on the  JSNA website hosted by Cheshire East Council

Contact Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

If you have any comments or suggestions about this page, contact phit@cheshireeast.gov.uk