Access to primary health care and social services for English-speaking communities across Quebec

CHSSN 2006-2007 Access Initiative

The law recognizes that any English-speaking person has the right to receive services in his or her language, as provided by a regional access program. In spite of efforts made, steps are needed to ensure greater access to health and social services in English for English-speaking people and that these individuals use these services in equivalent proportion to the French-speaking community.

The goal of this initiative is to improve access to primary health care and social services for English-speaking communities across Quebec.

The 2006-2007 initiative is a logical continuation of the projects that were implemented in 2004-2006 in 14 Quebec regions. Its goal is to create more sustainable outcomes in the field, to provide improved access to health and social services in English for English-speaking people in Quebec and to strengthen partnerships between public institutions and the English-speaking community.

Objectives

Two objectives from the 2004-2006 initiative are being pursued:

General objectives:

• Improving access to the following services in English for the English-speaking community:
  • Primary health care services
  • Medical and general services, long-term care, youth and rehabilitation programs.
• Fostering links between the community and the institutions responsible for delivering health and social services.

Targeted approach

The method chosen consists of using a targeted approach with the promoters in the health and social services network who implemented projects through the 2004-2006 initiative. An invitation to develop a proposal related to their previous project was sent to these 37 promoters with initiatives to be completed no later than March 31, 2007.

Priorities

The following three priorities were retained:

• Interventions based on a population health approach linked to client information systems with a view to better understanding and better monitoring the health and social services problems of this clientele and offering better adapted and better coordinated services
• Reorganizing services while taking into account the clinical project and revision of the regional access program for services in English
• Strengthening partnerships between public institutions and community partners to ensure better complementarity and sustainability of their respective actions.

The projects had to fall within the identified priorities and aim to:

• Provide tangible results for the English-speaking clients and the milieu
• Use innovative and structuring approaches
• Have “re-usable” or “generalizable” approaches that provide the results sought by the clientele.

Project selection

An ad hoc evaluation committee was responsible for examining the proposals in light of the priorities and selection criteria.

The evaluation was based on the following criteria:

• Relevance of the project with respect to the targeted objectives and identified priorities
• Anticipated impact on the English-speaking clientele
• Anticipated impact on service organization and delivery
• Anticipated impact on partnerships between the public institutions and the community network
• Innovative, structuring and generalizable qualities of the project.

The CHSSN accepted 23 projects that will be carried out by
March 31, 2007.
 

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