With today’s release of the new Health Standards Organization (HSO) Long-Term Care Services Standard, the national standards process enters an important new phase. We would like to thank both the CSA Group and HSO and their respective technical committees for their work in developing the standards over the past two years.
CALTC offers strong support for the overarching vision presented by both the CSA and HSO standards. We welcome the focus on resident-centred care for which CALTC and its members have been long-time advocates. However, there are still deep concerns that without significant government investment in long-term care homes the standards will remain an aspiration and not a reality.
CALTC and its members have actively contributed to the development of the standards through participation in the public reviews and consultations and have consistently raised issues and practical concerns about the obstacles to implementation. Staffing shortages, chronic underfunding, outdated infrastructure and even the absence of appropriate IT and data tools remain barriers to delivering the care to which homes aspire. Making these changes will require the investment of time, money and staffing resources not currently available to homes.
CALTC and its members are actively working with the federal and provincial governments to address the longstanding structural issues in our system and the obstacles to implementation of the standards. With the expected agreement of a new 10-year federal-provincial-territorial funding agreement in coming weeks, there is an opportunity for significant and historic new investment in a sustainable future for long-term care in Canada.
We would like to thank the HSO and CSA technical committees for their work over the past two years.
