Statutory guidance

Annex B: glossary

Updated 1 February 2024

Applies to England

This annex defines the terms used in ‘Guidance on the preparation of integrated care strategies’.

Academic health science networks

England’s 15 academic health science networks play a critical role in connecting commercial and clinical innovators to health and care organisations, providing advice and support at every stage of the innovation pathway, and matching proven technologies to NHS challenges. Academic health science networks collaborate with NHS regional teams and local systems as part of this.

Local systems should consider how they will work with the academic health science networks to signal where there is unmet need, which will inform future research and innovation calls, and to support the adoption and spread of proven innovation.

Anchor institutions

Anchor institutions are large, often public sector organisations which are rooted in place and connected to their communities, such as universities, local authorities and hospitals.

Anchors have significant assets and spending power and can consciously use these resources to benefit communities, including through their role as employers, purchasers of services, their influence on the built environment and wider environmental impacts, and in partnership with others.

Director of adult social services

A post with responsibility for adult social services as commissioned by relevant local authorities.

Local authorities with responsibility for adult social services are required to appoint a director of adult social services, and to make them directly accountable to the chief executive of the local authority. Directors of adult social services have strategic responsibility and accountability for the planning, commissioning and delivery of social services for all adults, and take a leading role in delivering the wider vision for social care and combatting social exclusion in their local authority.

Directors of adult social services and directors of children’s services together ensure that all the social care needs of local communities are given equal emphasis and are managed in a co-ordinated way through joint strategic needs assessments and joint planning.

Director of children’s services

The director of children’s services must be appointed by each partner local authority.

The director of children’s services has professional responsibility for the leadership, strategy and effectiveness of local authority children’s services. They are responsible for securing the provision of services which address the needs of all children and young people, including the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, and their families and carers.

In discharging these responsibilities, the director of children’s services works closely with other local partners to improve the outcomes and wellbeing of children and young people.

The director of children’s services is responsible for the performance of local authority functions relating to the education and social care of children and young people. They are also responsible for ensuring that effective systems are in place for discharging these functions, including where a local authority has commissioned any services from another provider rather than delivering them itself.

Director of public health

The director of public health is appointed jointly by local authorities and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care as statutory officer of the local authority with lead responsibility for public health functions.

The core purpose of the director of public health is as independent advocate for the health of the population and system leadership for its improvement and protection. As such it should be a high-level statutory role bridging local authorities, the NHS and other appropriate sectors and agencies with responsibilities for health and wellbeing for a defined population.

Directors of public health and their teams can provide expertise and guidance on how system partners can work together to improve health and care outcomes and experiences across the whole population. This population health approach is an important aim of the establishment of integrated care partnerships (ICPs) and integrated care boards (ICBs).

Local authorities have (via secondary legislation) a requirement to provide the NHS with a public health advice service to inform effective commissioning of healthcare. Other sources of advice should ideally be drawn in with director of public health agreement, and should not be seen as an alternative to the full engagement of directors of public health and their teams.

5-year joint forward plan

This is the plan made by the ICB and its partner NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts on how they will perform their functions for the next 5 years.

While exercising their functions, including their part in preparing this plan, the ICB must have regard to the integrated care strategy, and joint strategic needs assessment, as far as is relevant. Within the plan the ICB must set out any steps they propose to implement any joint local health and wellbeing strategy, to which they must have regard.

Health and wellbeing board

A committee of the partner local authority, often considered to be at ‘place’ level (although ‘places’ are locally determined, this will not be the case in all areas).

Established by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, they must include listed representatives from the local authority, local Healthwatch, and each ICB in the local authority’s area, alongside such other persons as the local authority considers appropriate. They produce a joint strategic needs assessment and a joint local health and wellbeing strategy.

Health creation

Defined by the Health Creation Alliance as “the enhancement in health and wellbeing that occurs when individuals and communities achieve a sense of purpose, hope, mastery and control over their own lives and immediate environment”.

Integrated care board (ICB)

A new type of NHS body that brings the NHS together with partners across their area. ICBs are responsible for developing a plan for meeting the health needs of the population, managing the NHS budget, and arranging for the provision of NHS services in their area.

Integrated care partnership (ICP)

Each ICB and their partner local authorities will be required to establish an ICP, bringing together health, social care and public health (and potentially representatives from the wider public space where appropriate). ICPs will be tasked with promoting partnership arrangements to address the health, social care and public health needs of their system.

Integrated care strategy

This is produced by the ICP. It is an assessment of how the ICB, local authorities or NHS England will meet the needs identified in the health and wellbeing boards’ joint strategic needs assessments.

It may include a statement on the integration of health and social care services with health-related services (see a non-exhaustive list of these types of services in annex A). It differs from the joint local health and wellbeing strategy as it is at system, rather than place, level.

Joint local health and wellbeing strategy (JLHWS)

JLHWSs are strategies for meeting the needs identified in joint strategic needs assessments (JSNAs) - see below. As with JSNAs, they are produced by health and wellbeing boards. JLHWSs were previously referred to as joint health and wellbeing strategies.

Joint strategic needs assessment (JSNA)

JSNAs are assessments of the current and future health and social care needs of the local community. JSNAs are produced by health and wellbeing boards.

Neighbourhood-level

Covering populations of about 30,000 to 50,000 people, these are served by groups of GP practices working with NHS community services, social care and other providers to deliver more coordinated and proactive services, including through primary care networks.

Place-level

Covering populations of about 250,000 to 500,000 people, these are served by a set of health and care providers in a town or district, connecting primary care networks to broader services including those provided by local councils, community hospitals or voluntary organisations.

System-level

Systems cover populations of about 1 million to 3 million people. The whole area’s health and care partners in different sectors come together to set strategic direction and to develop economies of scale.