What is the JSNA?
Northamptonshire’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, or JSNA, is a process that looks at the current and future health, care and wellbeing needs of Northamptonshire residents to inform and guide the planning and commissioning of health, wellbeing and social care services.
The JSNA in Northamptonshire brings together information from many different sources and partners relating to the population of Northamptonshire.
The responsibility for compiling a JSNA is shared between Northamptonshire County Council and Nene and Corby Clinical Commissioning Groups via the Health and Wellbeing Board. The Department of Health has provided a statutory guidance document for JSNAs.
The JSNA is intended to:
- investigate wider social factors that have an impact on health and wellbeing, factors such as poverty, housing and employment
- look at the health of the population, what behaviours affect health and wellbeing such as smoking, diet and exercise
- provide a common overview of health and care needs for the local community
- identify health inequalities
- provide evidence of effectiveness of health and care interventions
- document current service provision
- identify gaps in health and social services and unmet needs
The JSNA takes information and data relating to the population, for example population numbers, levels of smoking, life expectancy and causes of mortality, and captures, collates, analyses and interprets this population-level data.
The process can be driven by looking at data; stakeholder, key informant, patient and service user views; and comparisons between and within different areas.