The Health and Social Care Act encourages greater integration between health and care services, so that patients and the public can receive seamless care.
Health and wellbeing boards are vital to that integration – local authorities, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), local Healthwatch, public health, social care and children’s services leaders joining together to assess what health and care services local people need and agree how they can best work together to make that happen.
To support health and wellbeing boards, the Department of Health has worked with stakeholders on producing statutory guidance, which explains the duties and powers of Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) and Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategies (JHWSs). The Department of Health undertook a public consultation on a draft version of the guidance which had been developed with significant input from and engagement with stakeholders across the health and social care system. The final guidance is the result of this consultation and engagement.
Read the final statutory guidance, response to the consultation undertaken in 2012, and supporting documents below:
Diagram to show the explicit link from evidence to service planning in JSNAs and JHWSs – March 2013
The purpose of JSNAs and JHWSs is to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes of the local community and reduce inequalities for all ages. This guidance is especially important as under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, JSNAs and JHWSs will form the basis of CCG, the NHS Commissioning Board and local authority commissioning plans, across all local health, social care, public health and children’s services.
The purpose of the guidance is to support health and wellbeing boards and their partners by:
- laying out duties, which underpin JSNAs and JHWSs to be undertaken by CCGs and local authorities through health and wellbeing boards from April 2013;
- explaining how JSNAs and JHWSs will fit together with commissioning plans in the modernised health and care system; and
- setting out how the JSNA and JHWS process will enable the NHS and local government to make real improvements to the health and wellbeing of local people.
Wider resources
The Department of Health is also working with partners across the health and social care system to develop a suite of wider resources to support health and wellbeing boards and their partners in undertaking JSNAs and JHWSs. This will pull together existing resources which emerging boards have told us they find helpful, and new resources based on what boards have asked for in terms of support in the modernised system. The first wave of these resources will be launched on the LGA Knowledge Hub in April, with further developments to follow over the coming months.
Staying in touch
If you are already a member of the ‘National Learning Network for health and wellbeing boards’ online community, you may wish to visit the Knowledge Hub for related discussions taking place around how shadow boards are developing their draft JSNAs and JHWSs.
Register for the Knowledge Hub to find out more.
Follow the #JSNA and #JHWS conversation on Twitter