You probably know that healthcare is provided by the NHS.
But who makes the decisions that affect you personally? Like where you go for cancer care? If you need fertility treatment, who decides how many rounds of IVF you can have? Who decides which prescription medications you’re entitled to?
When you go to see your doctor, have a hospital appointment, or see any other NHS health professional, all of those services are designed, contracted and paid for by an organisation called the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board (often shortened to the BLMK ICB).
When you’re at an appointment, you might see their logo.
You can find out more about our local Integrated Care Board on their website.
What about adult social care and children's services in Milton Keynes?
Milton Keynes City Council provide social care for adults, and children.
The bigger picture
The ICB work with Milton Keynes Council, service providers like Milton Keynes University Hospital Trust, mental health services, community health services, and local voluntary organisations involved in your health and social care, to make sure that services are ‘joined up’. You may see this partnership referred to as different groups, where they join up to improve health and care together. You might see the names Integrated Care Partnership, the Integrated Care System, or the Milton Keynes Health and Care Partnership.
What does all this mean for you?
It should mean that from referrals to appointments, to your medical records and your medications, your health care is all managed in a straightforward way and you don’t have to keep explaining everything to lots of different people.
For example, if you have diabetes it should mean that all the professionals involved in your care – your doctor, a dietician, hospital consultant, district nurses - work together to support you in the best way. In theory, they should share notes (with your consent) on your care, they will all know what’s happening next, you won’t have to keep repeating yourself because everyone has the same information, and your appointments will be easy to manage.
Where do we fit into this?
Healthwatch Milton Keynes is known as a ‘strategic partner’ to the ICB.
This means we are a ‘critical friend’ and we help the ICB to connect with residents and patients so they can listen to you when planning services for our city.
- We are an independent statutory organisation.
- We share with them what you’re telling us about local health services. For example, if lots of people tell us about problems getting a doctor’s appointment, or when we hear about the need for much better mental health support, we share all that information with the ICB and tell them how they should improve those services.
- Sometimes, we may ask you questions or for your feedback about something the ICB have asked us and feed your views and experiences back to them.
- We make our own decisions, and if something isn’t in the best interests of patients, we will say so.
- We make sure the ICB listen to the experiences of people who might feel ignored or forgotten about. For example, anyone from a minority ethnic background, people with a disability, people who are neurodiverse, LGBTQIA+ people, people who live on a very low income, and anyone else who might not feel listened to.
This diagram might be useful to explain how all these parts of health and social care work together.
