Key updates

New government regulations require all Public Sector websites to be accessible, by making sure they are “perceivable, operable, understandable and robust”. Whilst we hope our website is already easy for everyone to use, there are some areas where we may not be fully compliant with the accessibility regulations. We’ve addressed this in our newly published partial compliance Accessibility Statement. This statement explains how accessible the website is and what you can do if you can’t access certain areas. We’ll be auditing our website over the coming months and updating this statement to list any inaccessible areas we find and what we’ll do to fix these.

Alongside this statement, we’ve included a brief guide with ways you can increase access, such as screen readers and screen magnifiers. If you do have any problems accessing parts of the website, please contact us at ACDJSNA “at” westsussex.gov.uk and we’ll do our best to help.

Improving the JSNA website

Alongside improving the accessibility of the website, we’ll also be making some changes to where information can be found and how it’s presented. We hope these changes will make the site more user friendly and structured.

As we produce new data and reports on topics we haven’t previously covered, we’ll also be adding new pages to house these subjects. These include:

  • SmokeFree West Sussex
  • Global Burden of Disease (GBD)
  • Population change
  • Falls
  • Musculoskeletal problems (MSK)

Changing CCGs…

Improving the health and wellbeing of the population is an that ongoing task that constantly evolves with the needs of our changing population. As such, the groups that plan and commission health services change to reflect this.

Currently, there is a push for more integrated healthcare systems, where services can be better coordinated across the NHS and social care, and where there can be greater joint working between different commissioning organisations and between commissioners and providers.

In West Sussex, health and wellbeing services are delivered at different levels by numerous organisations, including West Sussex County Council, the Districts and Boroughs, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and the recently introduced neighbourhood level Primary Care Networks (PCNs). We are also working more closely with health partners in our neighbouring counties, including East Sussex, Brighton and Hove, and Surrey.

West Sussex currently has three CCGs, which have a statutory responsibility to commission most NHS services. These are the Coastal West Sussex CCG, the Horsham and Mid Sussex CCG and the Crawley CCG.

However, as the recently published NHS Long Term Plan has announced that Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) will cover the whole country by 2021, with typically one CCG covering each ICS, many CCGs have plans to merge. This includes the three West Sussex CCGs, which may merge to become one in the future.

As a result, the way we show data for these CCGs will have to change. Rather than present data specific to each of the three CCGs in separate sections, we’ll begin to group data based on what it describes, so comparisons can be made more easily across specific topic areas. Within these topic areas, you’ll still be able to find information on individual local areas.

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