Canada’s new national long-term care standards released. Here’s what is different – National | Globalnews.ca

New national standards have been released to improve Canada’s long-term care facilities, where residents and staff have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A draft of the recommendations was unveiled for public review by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), Health Standards Organization (HSO) and Canadian Standards Association (CSA Group) on Thursday.

The revised guidelines come after a 21 month-long process including town halls and consultation workbooks involving over 18,000 Canadians and stakeholders that started back in March 2020 — right when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada.

Dr. Samir Sinha, HSO’s long-term care services technical committee chair, said he is hopeful this will provide a “clear blueprint” to enable the federal government, provinces and territories to move long-term care “to where all Canadians are demanding it to go.”

“We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted long-term care homes across Canada and currently of over 30,000 deaths that have occurred, over 51 per cent of them have actually occurred in our long-term care and retirement homes — and that represents nearly 16,000 deaths to date,” Sinha said during a virtual news briefing Tuesday ahead of the launch.

Long-term care homes across the country are experiencing outbreaks and staffing shortages amid the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Provinces have prioritized vaccine boosters for residents and tightened visitor restrictions to blunt the impact of this variant of concern.

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HSO developed its first long-term care services standards between 2012 and 2014, which were then revised between 2018 and 2020.

Under the new proposed guidelines that build on the previous standards from 2020, the criteria for resident-centred care, safe practices and a healthy and competent workforce have been added.

The recommendations stress that external services that are not part of the long-term care home’s workforce must also be available — either on-site or off-site — to residents when needed.

There are new sections that focus on governance and collecting data for quality improvement as well as a section on diversity, equity, inclusion and cultural safety.

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Among other revisions, the 42-page document clearly defines what a designated support person, caregiver or essential caregiver is.

“A person or persons chosen by a resident to participate in the resident’s ongoing care,” the newly-included definition states. They are not members of the LTC home’s workforce, it adds.

“Residents have the right to include or not include any of their designated support persons in any aspect of their personal and other care, and to change who they wish to identify as a designated support person,” according to the draft document.

The latest standards will now undergo a 60-day public review, in which Canadians are invited to give their input and feedback before the final version is published later this year.

In Canada, health comes under the jurisdiction of provinces and territories, so it is ultimately up to them to implement the standards as they see fit.

Sinha said there is a possibility that the standards could be implemented as legislation at the federal, provincial and territorial level.

As part of its 2021 election platform, the Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to develop a Safe Long-Term Care Act, train up to 50,000 new personal support workers and raise wages.

The feds are looking to invest $9 billion over five years to meet those targets for long-term care, with $3 billion specifically to support the implementation of new national standards.

“I think certainly Ottawa’s significant commitment to improving long-term care with hard dollars pledged … gives a stronger level of interest in these standards and the work that we’ve done to date,” Sinha said.

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