Ontario Connecting 300,000 More People to a Family Doctor and Primary Care Teams This Year

Dr. Philpott’s Primary Care Action Team launches first call for proposals as part of plan to connect every person in the province to primary care by 2029

The Voice of Canada :

Ontario government launched the first call for proposals to create and expand up to 80 primary care teams that will connect 300,000 more people to a family doctor and primary care team this year, bringing the province one step closer to connecting everyone in Ontario to primary care by 2029.

“Through our government’s record investments in primary care, Ontario has achieved the highest rate of access to a regular health care provider in the country,” said Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health. “To continue to build on this progress, we are taking the next step to connect 300,000 more people to primary care this year– bringing us one step closer to our goal of connecting every person in the province to primary care.”

The province is investing $213 million to support the first call for proposals that will create or expand up to 80 primary care teams. This funding is part of the more than $1.8 billion the Ontario government is investing to add 305 new primary care teams across the province, connecting two million more people to publicly funded primary care within four years.

This first call is targeted to communities, by postal code, that have the highest number of people not connected to primary care, averaging 8,000 people unattached per postal code. This is an important step in the government’s action plan to build a primary care system that automatically offers every person in Ontario the opportunity to have a family doctor or primary care team based on postal code no matter where they live.

This approach will attach everyone currently on the Health Care Connect waitlist (as of January 1, 2025) to a primary care team over the next year. As part of their application, prospective teams will have to demonstrate how they will connect the maximum number of people living within their identified postal codes to primary care. The government expects to select and announce successful teams in summer 2025, as well as launch a second call for proposals in September 2025.

To support targeted strategies to recruit and retain the workforce needed to deliver high-quality care, Ontario is also investing an additional $22 million to support all existing primary care teams to help them meet increased operational costs for their facilities and supplies. The province will continue to look at additional ways teams can successfully support, and retain, their workforce.

“Together we are building a primary care system that is comprehensive, convenient, and connected for every single person in Ontario,” said Dr. Jane Philpott. “In communities across Ontario, your primary care team will be your entry to care, where you will have a team of health professionals led by a family doctor or nurse practitioner to provide the care and services you need, when you need it, in a timely way.”

Ontario’s Primary Care Action Team, led by Dr. Jane Philpott, will implement its action plan by building on the government’s historic investment of more than $1.8 billion to expand access to primary care and draw on best-in-class models of care from across the province to close the gap for the remaining 10 per cent of people in the province in need of primary care by 2029. Interprofessional primary care teams are made up of a family physician or nurse practitioner and other health care professionals such as nurses, physician assistants, social workers, dieticians and more.

Through Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care, the Ontario government continues to take bold and decisive action to grow the province’s highly skilled health care workforce and ensure people and their families have access to high-quality care closer to home for generations to come.

Quick Facts

• The government’s plan will close the gap for the remaining 10 percent of people not connected to a primary care provider by attaching approximately two million people to primary care by 2029.
• The first call for proposals will open today, April 10, 2025, and close on May 2, 2025. Prospective primary care teams will be notified of funding decisions in summer 2025.
• Primary care practices and clinicians should work with their Ontario Health Team and their Primary Care Network to submit a proposal.
• Applications are focused on creating or expanding one of the existing team based models: family health teams, community health centres, nurse practitioner-led clinics, and Indigenous primary health care organizations.
• To ensure Ontario Health Teams and their Primary Care Networks can support primary care teams and clinicians, like family doctors and nurse practitioners, to attach everyone within their identified postal codes over time, the government is investing an additional $37 million in Ontario Health Teams.
• Through the Your Health plan, Ontario invested $110 million in primary care teams across the province, helping to connect 328,000 more people to primary care close to home.
• Ontario has also opened two new medical schools and increased the number of medical school seats at existing medical schools to add 340 undergraduate seats and 551 postgraduate seats.
• Since 2018, the province has added nearly 100,000 new nurses and over 15,000 new physicians to the healthcare system.