A National and International Jurisdictional Review and Comparative Analysis of Long-Term Care Home Legislation, Policies, Directives and Standards with HSO’s 2023 National Long-Term Care Services Standard

July 5, 2023
By: Arushan Arulnamby & Samir K. Sinha

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Earlier this year, Health Standards Organization (HSO) published a new National Long-Term Care Services Standard to provide guidance on the delivery of resident-centred, high-quality long-term care (LTC) services. But because Canadian LTC homes are the responsibility of provinces and territories, before we can bring them in line with the new standard, we need to understand what provincial and territorial policies, legislation and directives they currently follow.

To do so, the National Institute on Ageing (NIA), in collaboration with HSO, completed a national review taking stock of the policy and regulatory landscape at the provincial, territorial and federal levels. Its findings, released in a new report, conclude that standards of care for services in LTC homes vary widely among Canada’s provinces and territories, underscoring the need for a national benchmark.