Agenda item

Each Health and Wellbeing Board must have a process for Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act (2007) sets out the role and responsibility of the Health and Wellbeing Board for this work. The current JSNA process is co-ordinated by Public Health Dorset and involves annual strategic narrative updates alongside deep dives into specific topic and cohort areas. As the Public Health Dorset service will be disaggregated into two public health teams on the 1^st April 2025, system discussions will be held to review how this responsibility is best discharged going forwards. 

This paper updates progress towards the development of a Children and Young People’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, presenting the proposed contents and structure developed through scoping discussions.

The Team Leader, Intelligence, Public Health Dorset presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The Board was advised that it must have a process for Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act (2007) sets out the role and responsibility of the Health and Wellbeing Board for this work. The JSNA was a statutory process was co-ordinated by Public Health Dorset and involves annual strategic narrative updates alongside deep dives into specific topic and cohort areas. As the Public Health Dorset service would be disaggregated into two public health teams on 1 April 2025, system discussions would be held to review how this responsibility was best discharged going forward. 

The report updated the Board on progress towards the development of a Children and Young People’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. It presented the proposed contents and structure developed through scoping discussions. The assessment considered a range of wider factors which affected health and wellbeing and included a range of qualitative and quantitative assessments. Scoping had been undertaken to ascertain what should be included within the assessment. This included the key trends affecting young people and their families, facilities and geographical issues and what were the current trends in health and wellbeing for children and families.

It was noted that this was a comprehensive undertaking and was welcomed by Children’s Services. It was noted that the Children and Young people’s partnership plan should also dovetail with this.

It was welcomed that the assessment was also looking into those issues which were on the horizon, such as the prospect of a smoke free generation. The assessment itself would include data on both smoking and vaping and would also consider how the new legislation on this issue would factor into the future of children’s health on this issue.

It was asked if Artificial Intelligence had been investigated and how this might help with health outcomes and if there was anything to share. It was agreed this was an interesting consideration which could be included within the JSNA and how it may be able to help with personalised interventions of specialised apps to support people health. It was also noted that it would be interesting to follow the Online Safety Bill and how this translated through to digital health. Lots of organisations already used a lot of digital options but this was separate to the work being done with the JSNA.

An issue was raised regarding the context and what would be done in the future moving from a responsive to a preventative agenda and how the information within the JSNA could be used to respond to this and move to a better place of understanding.

In response to an offer for how the Board and partners may be able to help it was noted that it may be useful to discuss in future those areas within the JSNA where the data was not readily available and how this could be addressed.

RESOLVED that the progress on the Children and Young People’s JSNA is noted.