Agenda item

The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) is a joint statutory obligation of Local Authorities and NHS Integrated Care Boards in England. The purpose of the JSNA is to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes of the local community and reduce inequalities for all ages. 

Tiffany Burch, Consultant in Public Health, Buckinghamshire Council.

Tiffany Burch, Consultant in Public Health, updated the Board on the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA). This was a statutory obligation of the Health and Wellbeing Board, the local authority and the Integrated Care Board. It was integral to the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and understanding the needs of the local population to ensure that focus was given to the right places. The update provided details of the progress over the last twelve months and outlined what would be delivered in the next twelve months.

The main points to highlight were that the topics for the next financial year had been agreed and were attached at appendix A. A new JSNA website and directory was launched. These could be found on the Council website. Tiffany Burch thanked Caroline Thickens, former Head of Public Health Intelligence, for ensuring that this project was delivered within 12 months.

The reports were very adults focussed so required more representation from the relevant children’s colleagues to ensure nothing was missed. The aim was also to link more to the services in secondary care so the JSNA content was more well-rounded and prevent any inequalities where data had not been linked well. It would also be beneficial for the JSNA to link to work being done on population health management to integrate and add to the journey, to offer a wider breadth of insight and analysis if commissioning on the areas.

The Board was recommended to note the progress, the topics and the forward plan.

The Chairman asked how the topics were selected and was informed that the Board agreed a development group which had selected the topics, largely determined by health inequalities and information gathered through public insight.

John Meech, Chair of Healthwatch Bucks, was pleased to see the selected topics for this year, especially, diabetes, housing and homelessness and early help. These would aid reduction on the demand of services.

Mark Green, Service Director for Children’s Services, commented that early help was essential to look at more from the perspective of early identification and then the response. With respect to SEND and the scope of it, were the three significant areas sufficiently covered, from the written statement of action which were identified following local area inspection in March 2022.

Phillipa Baker, Buckinghamshire Place Director, raised two pieces of work that were being done in the ICB and needed to be aligned to. The first was the population health management tool and a systems insights tool which were being reviewed before rolling out across Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. These tools could assist in targeting particular populations, but still needed to be tested along with partners to check the data by running a few case studies to see if it aligned with what was in the JSNA and other sources of evidence as well as practical knowledge.

The second piece of work was around engagement in relation to health inequalities and to make sure both were aligned so that the same people were not being engaged and it was managed sensitively.

The Clinical GP Chairman, Dr Raj Bajwa, asked that since the JSNA was a Place-based piece of work and the ICS and ICB had been established, what were the implications of the JSNA moving forward, would the process remain as it had. The Board were informed that since the JSNA was Place-based, it would need to specifically consider Buckinghamshire residents but some projects could be easily done at the BOB level, particularly for secondary care as Buckinghamshire patients didn’t just visit Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust but also went to Oxfordshire and Frimley, so there were elements of working across areas but others would be solely for Buckinghamshire.

The Chairman summed up the discussion and asked that the Board Members assist the JSNA going forward, and the Board was asked for data and the relevant experts and a commitment from partners to offer experts and assistance from voluntary groups.

The Chairman thanked Tiffany Burch for the update.