Information
July 2005
Backgrounder on Wait Times
In September 2004, First Ministers committed to a 10-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care. A key component of this action plan was the commitment to achieve meaningful reductions in wait times in priority areas such as cancer, heart, diagnostic imaging, joint replacements, and sight restoration by March 31, 2007. In addition, governments committed to establish comparable indicators of access to health care professionals and diagnostic and treatment procedures by December 31, 2005. By this date, governments also agreed to establish evidence-based benchmarks for medically acceptable wait times, starting with the five priority areas.
To support the 10-Year Plan , the Government of Canada is providing $41 billion over ten years. This includes $5.5 billion targeted to reducing wait times.
Budget 2005 provided an additional $15 million over four years in direct federal funding to build on and complement provincial and territorial wait times initiatives. This money will be used to engage all key players of the health care system in wait times efforts and will primarily support the development, dissemination and uptake of innovative approaches in wait times management.
Since the agreement on the 10-Year Plan, every province and territory has taken action on diverse initiatives to reduce wait times. For example:
- The Ontario government has announced significant increases to the number of diagnostic procedures and surgeries in cardiac care, cancer, cataract and joint replacement. In addition, the Ontario Wait Times Reduction Strategy , is moving ahead on several fronts including work to better track wait times through a provincial registry and website.
- Increased federal transfers for health care are contributing to Saskatchewan's additional investments in such areas as the reduction of surgical backlogs, expanding diagnostic capacity, medical and surgical equipment as well as management systems to improve timely access.
- New Brunswick's 2005 Budget includes such initiatives as the development of a surgical patient registry, while Nova Scotia's latest Budget includes measures to address wait lists for orthopaedic surgery.
Progress is also happening on many other fronts across the country, including:
- The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is conducting research to gather evidence on benchmarks in the five priority areas for wait times reductions;
- The Wait Time Alliance, a collaborative of the Canadian Medical Association and medical specialty groups in the five priority areas, conducted cross-country consultations that will inform its final report on proposed benchmarks in the five priority areas.
- The Canadian Institute for Health Information will report on progress on wait times across jurisdictions and the Health Council of Canada will report on progress of elements set out in the 10-Year Plan , including wait times.
These are only a few of the examples of action that are occurring across Canada on the wait times agenda.
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