Strategies and plans for meeting the needs of the community are to be underpinned by joint strategic needs assessment. These web pages provide guidance and information to support PCTs and local authorities (LAs) to do joint strategic needs assessment (JSNA).

JSNA is a process for collating and interpreting data and information, including local intelligence and patient and public views, to give a picture of the current and future health and well-being needs of the local community. It informs planning and commissioning of services for the short-, medium- and long-term, taking into account evidence of effectiveness.

JSNA will not only inform commissioning of health and social care services, but will underpin the sustainable community strategies and refreshed local area agreements. The background resources on these pages give the policy context and official guidance on JSNA.

The HNA Toolkit, developed by LHO on behalf of Commissioning Support for London, provides PCTs and LAs with a single point of access to the core JSNA data set. Accurate data will provide the framework for agreeing local priorities, enabling basic pan-London comparisons to be made and form the foundations for more in-depth analysis. The toolkit will also support PCTs and LAs in identifying the needs that will inform their Commissioning Strategy Plans for 2010/2011.

The longer term vision is for the HNA Toolkit to support the delivery of better health outcomes and improved performance against world class commissioning competencies by:

• Enabling health intelligence experts to use their analytical skills and insights more effectively
• Enabling decisions about joint plans between PCTs and Local Authorities to be based on shared evidence
• Enabling the benchmarking of health needs by providing consistent analyses and outputs and easy access to comparator data
• Releasing more time and resource to be concentrated locally on developing needs-based strategies and business cases
• Facilitating the needs-based prioritisation of investment and identification of improvement opportunities.

Click here for the HNA toolkit

Date	Title	Format	View
13 Dec 2007	Joint strategic needs assessment guidance
5 Dec 2007	Core dataset for joint strategic needs assessment
20 Nov 2007	Creating strong, safe and prosperous communities: draft guidance for consultation
11 Apr 2007	Prioritising health services: the role of joint strategic needs assessment
6 Mar 2007	Commissioning framework for health and well-being
30 Jul 2006	Sustainable communities: a shared agenda, a share of the action. A guide for local authorities

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Date	Title	Format	View
12 May 2009	JSNA: the APHO resource pack
26 Feb 2008	Interactive mapping tool: district and unitary authorities
11 Jan 2008	Government Office for London borough profiler
11 Jan 2008	Government Office for London datasets
11 Jan 2008	Southwark atlas of health

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Date	Title	Format	View
30 Jun 2006	Data sources for commissioners of children, young people and maternity services
	Children and young people needs assessment guidance from Every child matters team

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