Blueprint for Renewal: Transforming Canada's Approach to Regulating Health Products and Food
What is the Blueprint for Renewal?
To help Canadians maintain and improve their health, Health Canada's Health Products and Food Branch strives to ensure that they have access to safe and effective health products, safe and nutritious food, and the information they need to make healthy choices. Protecting the health and safety of Canadians is our priority.
To further these goals, we are undertaking a review of our approach to regulating health products and food. Our existing approach has evolved incrementally over time and dates back over 50 years. Transforming our legislative, regulatory, and policy frameworks will make the Branch more efficient, effective, and responsive to help us meet the evolving needs of Canadians in a world of fast-paced change.
The Blueprint for Renewal builds on a number of initiatives over the last few years to modernize Health Canada's regulatory process including
- significant improvements to our drug review performance through the Therapeutics Access Strategy;
- implementation of new safety and transparency initiatives; and
- collaboration with provinces and territories on the National Pharmaceuticals Strategy to improve Canadians' access to safe, effective, and affordable drugs through the health care system.
Consultation on the Blueprint for Renewal
In October 2006, the Health Products and Food Branch (HPFB) released the discussion document Blueprint for Renewal: Transforming Canada's Approach to Regulating Health Products and Food. The Branch concurrently launched consultations on the Blueprint initiative.
Seven regional consultation sessions took place in November 2006 in Toronto, Halifax, Winnipeg, Longueuil, Ottawa, Vancouver and Edmonton. The summary report from these sessions offers a brief synopsis of the consultations. The full regional report includes the summary report and offers more details on each of the seven regional consultations.
An electronic consultation on the Blueprint was also conducted from October 26 to December 6, 2006. The e-consultation report is now available.
As a result of these consultations, the Health Products and Food Branch has developed a revised version of the Blueprint, which incorporates many of the suggestions received from stakeholders and further develops the plan set forth in the original Blueprint document. Look for this document on the website in early April 2007.
Engaging Canadians
Including a range of perspectives in the decision-making process will enhance the quality, credibility, and accountability of our process for change. Therefore, an important element in our efforts to transform our regulatory system is involvement of the public.
The Branch has already made progress in engaging a variety of stakeholders --health professionals, academics, patients, consumers, and industry -- on initiatives that are key to our renewal. We invite you to visit the past consultations section for more information.
Reporting to Canadians
We will make the results of our public involvement activities available on this Web site.
Need more information?
If you have any questions, contact us at hpfb_blueprint@hc-sc.gc.ca
|
