The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) for 2025/26 was released in June 2025.
What is a JSNA?
It is an assessment of the current and future health and social care needs of the local community. It uses the latest and most reliable data.
Why does it matter to me?
It helps people in the Torbay statutory and voluntary sector understand the situation within Torbay in relation to different areas such as Children and Young People’s Education and Health, Mental Health, Women’s Health, Housing, Unpaid Carers and many other areas. It does this by bringing the data together in 1 place. There is also a ‘Ward Profile’ where you can find out information about individual wards within Torbay.
For example, if you are you writing a funding bid or trying to make a case for change? Use this data – it is accurate and up to date.
Key Challenges
Torbay has a significant amount of challenging areas including:
- Residents in Torbay’s least deprived areas can expect to live 8 years longer than those living in our most deprived areas
- Torbay’s economy is among the weakest in England
- High rates of cared for children and referrals to children’s social care
- High rates of adult social care support needs for those aged 18 to 64 and 65+
- An ageing population with 1 in 3 Torbay residents expected to be 65 and over within the next decade
- High levels of self-harm
- High levels of homelessness
- High levels of vulnerability in the population, including groups with specialist needs and high levels of mental ill health
- High levels of admissions to hospital related to alcohol
Better outcomes and improvement
Torbay also has areas of improvement, these include:
- Increases in breastfeeding rates
- Child immunisation rates are higher than England
- Falls in under 18 conceptions over the last decade
- Although higher than England, a steady fall over the last decade in the rate of emergency hospital admissions for self-harm
- Lower level of unemployment claimants than England
- Increases in bowel cancer screening rates
- Higher rates of 15 to 24 year old females accessing services to screen for chlamydia than England.
- Falls in hospital admissions and deaths of under 75s in relation to strokes over the last decade.
The full document for Torbay and Torbay’s wards is available at Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and Ward Profiles – Torbay Knowledge and Intelligence
