The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) describes the health, social care and wellbeing needs of local communities in Bury. The core aim is to develop local evidence-based priorities for commissioning which will improve the public’s health and reduce inequalities. JSNA output, in the form of evidence and the analysis of needs is used to help in determining what actions local authorities, the local Integrated Care Board (ICB) and other partners need to take to meet health and social care needs, and to address the wider determinants that impact on health and wellbeing locally.

The JSNA:

• Provides a shared understanding of the needs of our local communities for health and care

• Looks at the health of the population focusing on behavioural risk factors including smoking, diet and exercise

• Helps to identify commissioning priorities to improve health and wellbeing priorities and reduce health inequalities

• Examines wider determinants of health such as income, education and housing that are now recognised to have a greater influence on health than health care, behaviours or genetics

• Provides evidence on the effectiveness of various health and care interventions

• Documents current provision of services and identifies gaps in health and care services to highlight unmet needs

The primary audience for the JSNA are health and social care commissioners, who use it for service planning. The JSNA will be used to support Bury 2030 Strategy and to inform the commissioning of health and care services to meet needs and priorities as described in the Bury 2030 Strategy. Additionally, it can be used for business cases and bids by the non-profit and community sector to ensure that needs and opinions of the local population are represented by service providers to aid in the expansion of their offerings in the future. General public can use the JSNA to examine local health and wellbeing data, strategies, and commissioning recommendations.

JSNAs are prepared by local authorities and NHS Commissioners and are overseen by the Health and Wellbeing Board.

If you work for the local authority or NHS, the JSNA will help your team to identify needs among your audience to help you in making evidence-based decisions.

If you are a charity or non-profit organisation, the outcomes of the JSNA may help with your service delivery. You will also have input into the process so that topics important to you, can be included in the population assessment.

If you are a business or member of the public, the results of the JSNA are likely to have some impact on you, your employees, or family members. The main objective is to eventually increase the health and wellbeing of people in your community.

The JSNA is in the process of being updated and we will add relevant sections as soon as they are available. It will be updated regularly with new and refreshed information from a wide range of topics. We collect, analyse and interpret detailed information about our local population from different data sources including the census, health surveys, service-based information and ‘Lived experiences’ from our local communities. We are also adding information about high impact and evidence-based interventions to improve health, alongside interactive tools such as our ward profiler.  The JSNA will include a section on research publications as part of our vision to become a research powerhouse at the local level.  

In addition to Bury JSNA, publicly available statistics, profiles and reports are available in the Public Health Outcomes Framework, which can be viewed on the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities website.

The Public Health and the Performance and Intelligence Teams at Bury Council are constantly reviewing ways to improve content and presentation of the JSNAs. Please contact the Performance and Intelligence Team with any queries or requests for information and intelligence