The Ontario government announced that is increasing the hours of direct care for each long-term care resident to an average of four hours per day. The announcement was made in advance of the release of Ontario’s 2020 Budget on November 5, 2020.
This new commitment to improve quality of care includes:
- Average daily direct care of four hours a day per resident. Direct hands-on care is provided by nurses or personal support workers to support individual clinical and personal care needs.
- Hard targets set over the next four years to achieve this standard by 2024-25. Progress against these targets will be measured and reported regularly.
- Educating and recruiting the tens of thousands of new personal support workers, registered practical nurses and registered nurses that will be required. As part of the province’s COVID-19 Fall Preparedness Plan, the province is taking the first step by recruiting an additional 3,700 frontline workers for its health workforce.
The provincial government says it will work in collaboration with its partners, including labour, education and training providers, as well as sector leaders, to deliver the significant changes to the long-term care sector required to deliver on its four hour per day commitment.
Details were provided today by Premier Doug Ford, Rod Phillips, Minister of Finance, and Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga.
The government will release Ontario’s 2020 Budget on November 5, 2020. The next phase of Ontario’s Action Plan, Ontario’s 2020 Budget will focus on protecting and supporting people and employers during the COVID-19 pandemic, while laying the foundation for the province’s economic recovery.
