Primary Health Care Transition Fund - Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Primary Health Care Transition Fund?
How were initiatives selected?
What exactly does the federal government seek to achieve through the PHCTF?
What has the PHCTF achieved to date?
How will we know if the PHCTF has achieved its objectives?
The funded initiatives total less than $800M. Where did the rest of the money go?
What will happen when PHCTF funding ends?
The PHCTF is an $800M investment by the Government of Canada to support provinces and territories with the transitional costs of implementing large-scale primary health care reform initiatives. Most of the funding ($576M) was allocated directly to provinces and territories. The remainder is supporting various pan-Canadian initiatives to address common barriers, and offers the opportunity for participation by health care system stakeholders such as provider groups. It is expected that these initiatives will improve access, accountability, and integration of services through fundamental and sustainable change to the organization, funding, and delivery of primary health care services.
The selection process varied with the various components of the PHCTF. Please see the descriptions of the funding envelopes for further information.
The primary purpose of the PHCTF is to support provinces and territories to bring about permanent and sustainable changes to their heath care systems. These changes could include:
- increasing access to primary health care organizations which provide comprehensive services to the populations they serve;
- creating multi-disciplinary teams of providers to provide coordinated patient-centred care;
- a greater emphasis on health promotion, disease and injury prevention, and management of chronic diseases;
- expanding access to essential services on a 24/7 basis; and
- improving integration and coordination with other parts of the health care system.
Please refer to the Interim Report (PDF Version)  on the PHCTF (April 2005).
All PHCTF-funded initiatives are required to conduct evaluations. In addition, the PHCTF as a program is undergoing a detailed evaluation by Health Canada's Departmental Program Evaluation Division.
Some funding was reserved by the federal government for program management (including administrative costs, synthesis and dissemination activities, communications, and program evaluation). In addition, some funding was re-directed to other federal priorities.
The PHCTF will end in 2006, but the initiatives it is supporting were planned to be sustainable. In addition, the synthesis and dissemination strategy will ensure that results from PHCTF initiatives inform ongoing developments in the sector. Furthermore, since 2000 the federal government has provided significant additional resources to health care delivery. The 2003 federal budget (following the Health Accord of the same year) identified $16B over five years to support primary health care (along with home care and catastrophic drug coverage), and the Ten-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care was accompanied by further federal investments.
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