Issue - meetings

Background:

This report presented the executive summary of the Medway Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.

The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act (2007) placed a duty on Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts to undertake a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).  A JSNA assesses the need of a population rather than an individual, and is a tool to identify groups where needs are not being met and that are experiencing poor outcomes. It informed and guides commissioning of health, public health and social care services within a local authority area, leading to agreed commissioning priorities that will improve health and wellbeing outcomes and reduce inequalities, taking into account evidence of effectiveness.

The report set out the key themes emerging from the JSNA, which would form the basis for the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy. These were:

• Give every child a good start
• Enable our older population to live independently and well
• Prevent early death and increase years of healthy life
• Improve physical and mental health and wellbeing
• Reduce health inequalities.

Members were advised that workshops had been held to identify priorities for the JSNA and the Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board had held a stakeholder engagement event where the JSNA themes were reviewed and priorities for action proposed. The Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board would review the proposals as it prioritised actions for the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

The Health and Adult Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee had considered this report on 26 June 2012 and the views of the committee were set out in the report.

Reasons:

Production of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment is a statutory duty for the Council. It identifies the health and wellbeing needs for Medway which supports the development of the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy to address the priority needs in Medway. This ensures that there is a focus on improving outcomes and making the best use of resources.