Working together to improve health care in Canada: Overview

We're working with provinces and territories to improve health care for people in Canada.

On this page

• Working Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians Plan
• Measuring improvements on shared health priorities

Working Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians Plan

In the 2023 federal budget, we invested more than $200 billion over 10 years to support the Working Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians Plan.

Through this plan, we will work collaboratively with provinces and territories on 4 shared health priorities:

• expanding access to family health services, including in rural and remote areas
• supporting health workers and reducing backlogs for health services such as surgeries and diagnostics
• improving access to quality mental health, substance use and addictions services
• modernizing the health care system with standardized information and digital tools so health care providers and patients have access to electronic health information

We will also work with provinces and territories to help people in Canada age with dignity, closer to home. We will do this by supporting efforts to improve access to home and community care, and safe long-term care.

This investment to support our plan consists of:

• the Canada Health Transfer (CHT):
  • a $2 billion CHT top up in 2022 to 2023
  • a guaranteed 5% growth to the CHT for the next 5 years
• funding from bilateral agreements:
  • $25 billion over 10 years to support the shared health priorities
  • $4.8 billion over 4 years to support improvements to home and community care, and mental health and addictions services
  • $3 billion over 5 years to improve safety in long-term care
  • $1.7 billion over 5 years to support wage increases for personal support workers and related professions
• the Territorial Health Investment Fund (THIF):
  • $350 million over 10 years to recognize medical travel and the cost of delivering health care in the territories
• $505 million over 5 years to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Canada Health Infoway and federal data partners to work with provinces and territories to:
  • improve digital health tools
  • develop new health data indicators
  • support the use of data to improve safety and quality of care
  • support the creation of a Centre of Excellence on health worker data
• $2 billion over 10 years to address unique challenges Indigenous Peoples face when it comes to fair and equitable access to quality and culturally safe health services

Following the announcement of the plan, we reached agreements in principle with provinces and territories.

Agreements in principle with provinces and territories

• Alberta
• British Columbia
• Manitoba
• New Brunswick
• Newfoundland and Labrador
• Northwest Territories
• Nova Scotia
• Nunavut
• Ontario
• Prince Edward Island
• Saskatchewan
• Yukon

Measuring improvements on shared health priorities

Building on the 2017 Common Statement of Principles on Shared Health Priorities commitment to work collaboratively with the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), federal, provincial and territorial officials agreed to develop and report on common indicators. CIHI publishes annual updates on the 12 common indicators focussed on home and community care, and mental health services, associated with the common statement. This allows people in Canada to assess progress on these shared health priorities.

The Working Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians Plan identifies an additional set of 8 indicators. CIHI released an initial snapshot of these indicators in August 2023.

CIHI is leading a collaborative process, with provinces, territories and data partners, to review and report annual progress on these 8 common indicators. In addition, CIHI is working with these partners to identify a broader list of common indicators, including new Indigenous health indicators. This work will also seek to improve the availability of indicator data that can be sorted by population characteristics.

This will allow jurisdictions and CIHI to report on how health care:

• is delivered across Canada
• performs in each province and territory
• compares internationally

In addition to these common indicators, bilateral agreements will include indicators tailored to provincial and territorial needs.