The government intends to avoid fragmentation of services by setting up new Health and Wellbeing Boards. Each local authority will have its own board with the responsibility to ensure that NHS services, health improvement and social care services are properly coordinated and integrated.
They will also be required to develop a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy (JHWS) which are currently the responsibility of PCTs.
The JSNA’s central role is to act gather the evidence required for health and well-being boards to make decisions on key local health priorities. Clinical commissioning groups and local authorities, including public health teams, will look jointly at local population health needs. The process can involve looking at local data; consulting health and community organisations that operate in the area, patient and service user views and comparisons between and within different areas.
The JSNA should allow you, as people living with HIV, as well as other people and organisations with a particular interest, to have a say about the strategy for services at a local level at consultations or open public forums.
The JHWS covers health care and treatment, social care and public health and will set out the overall plans for a local area and how it is intended that needs are met. This local strategy and its connection to commissioning plans will form the basic link for the Health and Wellbeing Board to promote joint commissioning and integrated provision between health care, public health and social care.
Though they will not have a veto, Health and Wellbeing Boards will have a clear right to refer plans back to the clinical commissioning groups or to the NHS Commissioning Board for further consideration if they do not think they are in line with the joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy.
Some local authorities are early implementers and have already set up ‘shadow’ Health and Wellbeing Boards in order to have the organisation and integration in place in advance of the switch over of responsibility in April 2013.
Link to ‘shadow’ Health and Wellbeing Boards
Further information on Health and Wellbeing Boards
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