What is a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment?

The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) is a process by which local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups assess the current and future health, care and wellbeing needs of the local community to inform local decision making. This includes:

•    Being concerned with wider social factors that have an impact on people’s health and wellbeing, such as housing, poverty and employment.
•    Looking at the health of the population, with a focus on behaviours which affect health such as smoking, diet and exercise.
•    Providing a common view of health and care needs for the local community.
•    Identifying health inequalities.
•    Providing evidence of effectiveness for different health and care interventions.
•    Documenting current service provision.
•    Identifying gaps in health and care services, documenting unmet needs.

Who is the JSNA for?

The main audience for the JSNA is health and social care commissioners who use it to plan services.

It can also be used as an evidence base for preparing bids and business cases, by the voluntary and community sectors to ensure that community needs and views are represented, by service providers to assist in the future development of their services, and by the public to scrutinise local health and wellbeing information, plans and commissioning recommendations.

The Camden Joint Strategic Needs Assesment (JSNA) factsheets below describe health and wellbeing local data and policies in Camden.