Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

Health, care and wellbeing in Cumbria 

Planning for the future 

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) 

What is the JSNA? 

The JSNA stands for the Joint Strategic Needs assessment and is the responsibility of NHS Cumbria and Cumbria County Council. It will identify the future health, care and wellbeing needs of the people of Cumbria and will guide how services are planned and developed over the next 3 to 5 years. 

The purpose of JSNA is to pull together in a single, ongoing process all the information that is available on the health and wellbeing of the people of Cumbria, the quality and accessibility of services, evidence about what works and the views and experience of the public. This information will then be used to make decisions about how services are provided in the future. 

JSNA: the national picture 

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) is an ambitious new programme, specified nationally but delivered at a local level by all upper tier NHS and local authorities. 

"A good JSNA, which many areas are already doing, is based on a joint analysis of current and predicted health and wellbeing outcomes, an account of what people in the local community want from their services (those provided by the statutory sector and the wider market) and a view of the future, predicting and anticipating potential new or unmet need." Commissioning Framework for Health and Well-being DH, March 2007 

Guidance specifies that JSNA is a process that should Inform the Local Area Agreement and NHS Cumbria Strategic Plan and lead to agreed commissioning priorities that will improve health and wellbeing outcomes and reduce health inequalities. It should reflect the competencies of world class commissioner; in particular, partnership working; community engagement; and evidence of effectiveness. It is an on-going cyclical process as shown by the figure below. 

JSNA in Cumbria

The development of the JSNA program in Cumbria is taking place in several stages. This process is being managed by a steering group which reports directly to the Health and Wellbeing Board of the Cumbria Strategic Partnership. The views of stakeholders have initially been incorporated through a questionnaire circulated to members of the CSP and senior managers / clinicians from the County Council and NHS Cumbria. The responses from the different stakeholders allowed the steering group to identify which areas and groups of people the JSNA should initially focus on. 

The initial step has been to develop a web based information resource and this will be followed by a series of demonstration needs assessment and public engagement projects focused on specific communities and issues. 

In developing the JSNA in Cumbria, we are not starting 'from scratch'. Joint work on identifying and addressing issues of health and wellbeing is already firmly established in Cumbria. The JSNA program will add value to and fill in the gaps in this current activity by pooling the intelligence and public engagement resources and expertise of the County Council and NHS Cumbria to inform our future planning.