NHS England has published its Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) guide for hearing loss. The guide has been created by NHS England, the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Public Health, Public Health England, and a range of public health leads. The BAA has been involved in this work with our partners at the Hearing Loss and Deafness Alliance. The BAA welcomes this long overdue publication.

The Hearing Loss Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) guide presents evidence on the prevalence and impact of hearing loss and should be used alongside NHS England’s Commissioning Services for People with Hearing Loss: A Framework for Clinical Commissioning Groups which was published in 2016. Together, these two key outputs of the Action Plan on Hearing Loss, aim to support local authorities and NHS commissioners to meet their statutory duties to assess the needs of local populations, take account of health inequalities, advance equality and commission high-quality services to meet local hearing needs and improve public health.

The JSNA should be used in conjunction with the documents on what works. The JSNA and other documents can be accessed here.