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Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) are intended to help create evidence-based priorities for public health commissioning at local government level in the UK. They are supposed to consider the needs of people with protected characteristics, and this study aims to look at how the JSNAs for London are serving the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) population.

JSNAs are documentary data and are in the public domain. Each of the 31 JSNAs for London was individually assessed against a series of questions designed to test their inclusion of the local LGBTQ+ population.

Fewer than one in five of London’s JSNAs: had a dedicated LGBTQ+ section; cited bespoke research into, or engagement with, the local LGBTQ+ population; made recommendations for specialist services for people from this community; or considered intersectionality in the context of this population.

This study demonstrates that many of London’s JSNAs contain little information on the city’s local LGBTQ+ population and only minimal assessment of its health, care and wellbeing needs. Recommendations include conducting further research on this population at the local level, using available guidance and engaging best practice.

This paper presents the results of a thematic analysis of safeguarding adults reviews (SARs) where homelessness was a factor to illuminate and improve safeguarding practice and the support of adults who are homeless in England.

SARs were identified from a variety of sources and a thematic analysis was undertaken using data extraction tables.

In addition to identifying shortcomings in inter-agency co-operation, SARs highlighted a failure to recognize care needs and self-neglect among people with experience of homelessness and evidenced difficulties in engagement between professionals and people with experience of homelessness.

The authors may have failed to find some SARs in this category (there is no central registry). SARs vary in quality and in detail; some were not full reports. The approach to people’s experience of homelessness was broad and covered more than the circumstances of people who were rough sleeping or living on the streets.

This paper contributes to the current practice debates and policy initiatives in respect of homelessness and safeguarding in England. It may have wider relevance in the rest of the UK and internationally.

This paper is based on a survey of service provision for women experiencing domestic violence and who have additional complex mental health or substance use needs. Postal questionnaires were sent to domestic violence organisations, community mental health teams, mental health NHS trusts and substance use services. The views of women survivors of domestic violence were also sought. The survey, undertaken by Women's Aid, identifies some shortcomings in existing provision and makes recommendations for future development of services. More refuge provision is needed which can accommodate women with mental health and substance use needs, and their children.Mental health professionals and those working in drug and alcohol services also need training in domestic violence, to enable them to respond more appropriately to the needs of abused women and to work effectively in partnership with refuge organisations.

This article reports the outcomes of a study on communication support, commissioned to develop a borough‐wide strategy in 2003 by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.The research stems from a recognition of communication as a key to successful delivery of public services and enhancement of a multicultural community.The focus is on ‘communication’ (rather than ‘language’), since it captures issues beyond the exchange of information through words: interpersonal interactions and relationships, techniques and modes of organising information exchange. Language is a key component within the broad ambit of communication mechanism and skills. Hence interpretation and translation are perceived as models of communications support alongside advocacy, integrated team, multilingual professional team, family/friends and minors, supported language, symbols and signs, and Plain English.While engaging in the debate and highlighting some of the broader issues concerning communication support services, the focus is on the following main issues:• policy frameworks and guiding principles in communication support• methods and techniques for needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation of communication support• communication support provision in Tower Hamlets including quantifying need, actual state of provision and users' perceptions.Probably among the first of its kind, the strategy draws on existing knowledge and good practice to develop a common framework for public services in Tower Hamlets. It is believed that it will serve a pioneering role in co‐ordinated existing and developing coherent approaches to communication support.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how local drug services use their senior staff to respond to emerging ethnic groups presenting to treatment using flexible thinking and innovative processes.

The methodology was a case study design that used a semi-structured questionnaire that looked at two drug services and their staff’s influence on service delivery in different boroughs of east London.

The research found very innovative findings from the two boroughs. The boroughs had different racial mixes and therefore differing populations presenting to their local drug services. However, they used flexible approaches to structure their services to engage with emerging ethnic minority populations in drug treatment. From the findings, these different approaches and structures of providing drug treatment were very important. Approaches, for example, of clinical staff offering a “rapid assessment” are particularly important in engaging and retaining ethnic minority populations. Also, using flexible thinking within the staff team enables drug services to adapt treatments to be flexible in responding to emerging ethnic populations.

This paper shows that thinking in designing approaches to drug treatment shows that ethnic minority populations can be successfully engaged in drug treatment. This has implications for drug treatment nationally and across Europe where there are “emerging” ethnic populations presenting for drug treatment.

This paper shows that drug services can adapt and change to their different ethnic minority populations if they can able to be flexible in their clinical approach to service provision.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a platform for young British Muslims in Tower Hamlets to share their perspectives on British values and identity, in light of the increased pressure schools are facing to actively promote “British values”.

Three focus groups were convened of 16-18 year olds, two all-male (one with five and one with six participants) and one all-female (five participants). Discussions were audio recorded with the data subjected to a form of thematic analysis that divided the raw data into three different categories: individual, group and group interaction data.

All but one of the participants defined themselves as British, largely due to a strong connection with British values. A minority felt this understanding was reflected back to them by society. However, the majority felt that, as ethnically Bengali and as Muslims, the opposite was the case. By judging the strength of an individual’s Britishness against the strength of their adherence to British values the government’s British values agenda is only serving to reinforce the isolation of those that feel excluded.

While the identities of young people, British people, and Muslims have been widely explored, there is little research that looks at the intersection of all three.

The Bangladeshi Migrants Pilot Study establishes the feasibility of applying the methods used in studying the informal support networks of older people in the majority population of Britain, specifically the Wenger support networks typology, to the elders of an immigrant group, and to elders who have remained in the region of origin. The sample consists of Bangladeshis aged 55+ in Tower Hamlets, London, United Kingdom (N=98), and Sylhet in Bangladesh (N=51) (see Table 1). The paper provides an ethnohistory of Bangladeshi immigration to the United Kingdom, a comparison of the support networks of Bangladeshis living in Sylhet and Tower Hamlets, and a comparison of support networks of Bangladeshis with rural and urban dwellers in the United Kingdom. The Practitioners Assessment of Network Typology (PANT) algorithm produces support network types in 99% of cases and demonstrates that the instrument is applicable in different cultures. Results show little difference between the support networks of Bangladeshis in Sylhet compared with London. There are significant differences between support networks of the Bangladeshi samples and the rural and urban United Kingdom samples.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the location of fast-food outlets around secondary schools and the influence of fast-food availability on the food choices of school children in an inner-London borough.

A number of methods including: mapping of outlets relative to schools; sampling food; gathering data on secondary school food policies; observing food behaviour in fast food outlets and focus groups with young people. Findings were fed back to a committee consisting of representatives from nutrition, public health, planning services and local community groups.

There are concentrations of fast-food outlets near schools and students reported use of these, including “stories” of skipping lunch in order to save money and eat after school at these outlets. Food from fast-food outlets was high in fat, saturated fat and salt, but these are not the only source of high such foods, with many of the students reporting buying from shops near the school or on the way to or from school. At lunchtime food outlets were less likely to be used by school students in areas near schools that have a “closed gate” policy.

The “snapshot” nature of the research limited what can be said about the food behaviours of the children outside school hours.

The local policy context requires action to improve both the food offered in schools and the immediate environment around the school in order to tackle fast-food and other competitive foods on offer outside the school.

This is one of the first studies in the UK to systematically map fast food outlets around schools and explore what might be done. This research shows how it is possible to link the findings of local research and develop local responses from both public health and local authority planning perspectives. The research moves away from a mere documenting of problems to devising integrated public health solutions. The findings show how public health and planning services can work together to the mutual benefit of each other.

Evidence suggests that misconceptions and negative stereotypes of the image of public libraries still prevail today despite libraries diversifying and offering a range of services to their local community and contributing to key local and national priorities. The purpose of this paper is to report on a case study‐based research project that sets out to explore how public libraries in the UK are using branding in order to create a more positive and effective image, as a basis for proposing the key factors that contribute to an effective public library branding strategy.

In total, three case study organisations were selected for the study, on the basis of their reputation for innovation in branding. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with key staff associated with each of the three public libraries, in order to gather an understanding of the branding processes and strategies that they had adopted, and how they had negotiated some of the challenges in branding in the context of public libraries.

The three case study organizations bear testimony to the fact that branding can be successfully used to change brand image, and in turn, the perceptions of the library service amongst key stakeholders. The following factors are key to successful branding: clear positioning and identity, advocacy and influence, co‐branding, staff buy‐in, brand communication, evaluation, and national marketing campaigns.

This study offers insights into branding process and strategies in innovative public libraries, and on this basis develops recommendations to support information practitioners to develop a positive image of their service and to engage effectively with stakeholders in what are challenging times for public libraries.

With the development of new public libraries such as the Idea Stores in Tower Hamlets and Discovery Centres in Hampshire, it has been debated whether the inclusion of non‐book materials and activities illustrates the death of public libraries by the marginalisation of books. This paper aims to investigate these assumptions by examining the use of space in public library buildings for book and non‐book purposes over time.

The methodology involves a survey of secondary data on library buildings and the comparison of floor plans, observations and stock statistics of libraries in the two authorities over time.

This study concludes that the inclusion of non‐book space is not a new trend in library buildings and that books still have a significant role in terms of floor space and stock in new libraries even with the increased addition of non‐book space, illustrating less dramatic changes than suggested by some commentators. These trends in fact indicate a diversification of public libraries and their buildings not their imminent death.

Although this research was only able to study a few examples of libraries, this alternative method of investigating space could be repeated in future research.

The study of use of space in libraries is important as it has implications for the library profession and the design of future library buildings. This methodology provides a different way of studying the issues of space.