This afternoon the Premier publicly released the mandate letters sent to each of her Ministers. These letters outline the specific priorities that each member of cabinet and their ministry will focus on. The mandate letter addressed to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care begins by pointing out government’s overall priorities, i.e. growing the economy, creating jobs, fiscal prudence. The Health Minister is specifically mandated to “lead the shift toward a sustainable, accountable system that provides co-ordinated quality care to people, when and where they need it.” The priorities named in the Health Minister’s letter include: “Bringing forward a plan to ensure that every Ontarian who wants one has a primary care provider.” The Liberal election platform articulated that one of the steps needed to make this a reality is to “Improve the recruitment and retention of community-based primary care teams.” AFHTO continues to press this commitment, working in an environment where the Treasury Board President’s mandate letter says, “You will help ensure that any modest wage increases negotiated are absorbed by employers within Ontario’s existing fiscal plan through efficiency and productivity gains, or other trade-offs, so that service levels continue to meet the public’s needs.”
The Health Minister’s mandate letter provides the possibility for the role of primary care to be strengthened. Statements include:
- You will foster collaboration across the system and make the necessary trade-offs to shift spending to where Ontario will get the best value for our health care dollars — which must be shared between our health system partners.
- Ensuring that patients receive timely access to the most appropriate care in the most appropriate place — and that the needs of Ontario’s patients are at the centre of the system.
- Championing the delivery of quality co-ordinated care to patients by making the best use of the skills and capacity of all our health care providers, hospitals, community clinics and organizations, long-term care homes and others. You will take the lead in ensuring that changes are informed by evidence — and that Ontario’s precious health care dollars improve quality of care and health outcomes for patients and families.
- Continuing to ensure that our system has the health human resources it requires to deliver quality and efficient care. This includes exploring appropriate expanded scope of practice for providers and more models for collaborative care.
While primary care is not specifically named in these statements, AFHTO believes the strength of evidence that investment in a strong primary care system leads to better health and lower costs, combined with the evidence we anticipate will emerge as we progress with our “Data to Decisions: Advancing Primary Care” initiative, give us ample opportunity to build the strength of our sector. “Accountability and transparency” is a strong theme throughout the letter. One of the many references states:
- You will now work with them (health care administrators, institutions and providers), as outlined below, to continue to drive accountability, transparency and quality throughout the system, while limiting expenditure growth.
- One of the outlined specifics is “Exploring options to further strengthen the framework for ensuring that the community sector and LHIN-funded health service providers are accountable for delivering quality patient care, including expanding the Excellent Care for All Act.”
AFHTO is well-positioned to address these issues with and on behalf of members. We have already begun to work with the leaders of our member FHTs and NPLCs to develop a common statement of principles and priorities for governance and accountability. This will guide our continuing work to advocate for our members and be a resource to support you. We look forward to receiving responses to our leadership survey from board chairs, lead MDs/NPs and executive directors, and building from the results at our Toward the Next Ministry Contract session immediately before the AFHTO conference.
- To access the mandate letter to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, go to http://www.afhto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014-09-25-Health-Minister-mandate-letter.pdf
- To access all of the mandate letters, go to http://www.ontario.ca/government/mandate-letters