Ontario connecting 300,000 more people to family doctors, primary care teams this year

Thursday (April 10), the Ontario government launched the first call for proposals to create and expand up to 80 primary care teams which 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 the province to primary care by 2029.

"Ensuring access to high-quality primary care is essential for the well-being of our communities,” says Huron-Bruce MPP Lisa Thompson, minister of rural affairs. “I am proud that our government is taking decisive action to connect 300,000 more Ontarians to family doctors and primary care teams.

"This is the next step in strengthening health care in rural and under-served areas like Huron-Bruce, and I look forward to seeing the positive impact this initiative will have on the people and families in our region."

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 wait-list (as of Jan. 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 this summer, as well as launch a second call for proposals in September.

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,” says 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 them, in a timely way.”

Ontario’s Primary Care Action Team, led by 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.

Inter-professional 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, dietitians 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 per cent 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 opened April 10, and closes May 2. Prospective primary care teams will be notified of funding decisions this summer.
• 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, such as 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 post-graduate seats.
• Since 2018, the province has added nearly 100,000 new nurses and more than 15,000 new physicians to the health-care system.

 
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
 

• Call for Proposals: Inter-professional Primary Care Teams
• Ontario Connecting More Than 300,000 People to Primary Care Teams
• Ontario Investing More Than $1.8-Billion to Connect Every Person in Ontario to a Family Doctor and Primary Care Teams
• Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care