Minister of Health and Minister responsible for Francophone Affairs
Email: HLTH.Minister@gov.bc.ca
Improving care for people in British Columbia is central to investments in workers as the Province launches a health human resources strategy to optimize the health system, expand training and further improve recruitment and retention.
“We are taking the next step in increasing access to public health care for people in B.C.,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “Since 2017, we’ve taken significant actions to improve and increase access to health services. From performing a record number of surgeries, to increasing our workforce by over 20% and adding more health-related education seats to post-secondary institutions, we have made important progress. But we know that people are facing real challenges right now and there is much more work to do, and this strategy will guide our next steps in building a strong, resilient public healthcare system now and in the future.”
The strategy will support patients who rely on the public health-care system by adding more doctors, nurses and health sciences professionals, adding new education and training seats, taking actions to improve retention and to optimize the system to help with workload.
The strategy will focus on four key areas:
This is a multi-year strategy with several actions starting in 2022-23. Actions that government are announcing immediately include:
More actions will be announced in the coming weeks and months, with additional steps in the following years. Health human resources has been a key priority for this government. This strategy, and the actions set out within it, will build on this foundation.
Since 2017, B.C. has committed more than $1 billion to support health-care workers and increase access to health services for people. The Province has added 602 new nursing seats and 322 additional allied health-related seats to public post-secondary institution, is providing bursaries for existing health-care workers and those from outside the province, streamlining the process for internationally educated nurses to enter B.C.’s health system, and has welcomed more than 38,000 new workers to the provincial health system during the past five years.
In addition, BC Emergency Health Services has recently added more than 250 net new paramedic positions throughout B.C., many located in rural, remote and First Nations communities and are transitioning from a casual workforce to more permanent positions.
The Province is investing $118 million in stabilization funding for family doctors together with Doctors of BC. The Ministry of Health is also working with Doctors of BC on a new physician master agreement and a new compensation model for family practice physicians.
Expanding the number of people who will be entering and graduating from UBC’s school of medicine is in addition to work underway with Simon Fraser University to open the second medical school in Surrey. The Province has provided $1.5 million to Simon Fraser University to support planning and development of the business case, and a project board has been established.
Learn More:
To learn more about B.C.’s health human resources strategy, visit:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/BCHealthHumanResourcesStrategy-Sept2022.pdf
To learn more about the Health Career Access Program, visit:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/economic-recovery/work-in-health-care
To learn more about Fast-track skills training opportunities in B.C.’s Economic Recovery Plan, visit:
https://strongerbc.gov.bc.ca/jobs-and-opportunities
For the most recent announcement about internationally educated nurses, visit:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022HLTH0120-000589
For the latest nursing seats announcement, visit:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022HLTH0004-000250
For the latest allied health seats announcement, visit:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022HLTH0047-001138
To learn more about the Access to Practical Nursing program, visit:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022HLTH0053-001272
For the most recent announcement about supports for family doctors, visit:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022HLTH0172-001282
Five backgrounders follow.
Anne Kang, Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training –
“The health workforce is crucial to our well-being, and immediate action is needed to meet the needs of British Columbians today and beyond. Expanding medical school seats is a great win for us, and for students. They have better access to pursue a life-changing and important career to become the health-care heroes that help our families every single day.”
Jamie Wigston, pharmacist and president of the BC Pharmacy Association –
“This is a major step for British Columbians needing better access to their critical medications and community pharmacists are ready to provide much needed additional support to their patients. These decisions will ensure that community pharmacists can fully support their patients by using their expertise and training to increase access that patients urgently need for the medications they are prescribed. We look forward to working with the Ministry of Health and the College of Pharmacists to enable prescribing authority for community pharmacists for minor ailments and contraception by the spring of 2023.”
Dr. Dermot Kelleher, vice-president, health, and dean, faculty of medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC) –
“Together with our academic and health authority partners, along with thousands of outstanding clinical faculty, UBC will graduate more doctors for B.C., benefiting patients and communities around the province. This provincewide expansion of UBC’s medical programs will ensure greater access and opportunities for students and resident doctors to train in the communities where they live, including regional, rural and remote settings.”
The new health human resource strategy includes four areas: retain, redesign, recruit and train. These are detailed below:
The University of British Columbia’s (UBC) faculty of medicine is expanding its medical doctor undergraduate program (MDUP) by 40 seats and postgraduate medical residency training programs (residency) by up to 88 seats, which will be phased in throughout the province beginning in 2023. This will bring the total student intake to 328.
The provincewide expansion, enabled by UBC’s partnerships with universities and all health authorities, will create more opportunities for students and resident doctors to learn, train and stay on to practise in communities around B.C.
The fully expanded 40-seat intake will be distributed as follows:
This optimizes existing capacity in the UBC faculty of medicine.
Becoming a doctor is a multi-year journey. At UBC, learners first complete the four-year MDUP, where they learn the foundations of medicine and patient-centred care while developing their clinical skills through training at hospitals and health clinics in urban, rural and remote settings across British Columbia. Upon successful completion of UBC’s MDUP, graduates earn a doctor of medicine (MD) degree.
Thereafter, they enter a residency program where they receive medical training in a specialized area of medicine. As resident doctors, they provide direct care to patients at clinics and hospitals under the supervision of clinical faculty members until they complete residency training. The length of residency can range from two to seven years depending on the residency program.
Postgraduate medical education seats:
Optimizing the scope of pharmacists means pharmacists can safely provide many drugs by injection or intranasally and adapt or review many prescriptions, relieving pressure on primary care providers and enabling people to access some types of care more quickly.
Once regulations are in place, it is expected patients may be able to get prescriptions from their local pharmacists for treatments for minor ailments, such as allergies, indigestion and acne, and for contraception. For example, a patient with a urinary tract infection may be able visit a local pharmacy for assessment and recommendations for treatment, instead of seeing a primary care provider, such as a doctor, or visiting the emergency room at a hospital due to a lack of options.
Community pharmacists will have additional support in renewing some prescriptions if needed for people who do not have a family doctor or consistent primary care provider.
For example, pharmacists will now be able to administer long-acting antipsychotics by injection in a community pharmacy. They can also renew opioid agonist therapy for patients with substance use, up to the quantity last prescribed.
Quick Facts:
People will now have more primary and emergency care services with new regulations in place that expand the range of services that paramedics and first responders can provide.
With the appropriate training and licensing in place, paramedics and first responders will be able to better assist and treat patients on scene. For paramedics, depending on licensing level, this means the ability to provide more interventions such as:
First responders will be able to:
The Province worked closely with training institutions, BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS), Ambulance Paramedics of BC (CUPE 873), the BC Association of Professional Fire Fighters, the Fire Chiefs Association of BC, the Emergency Medical Assistance Licensing Board and first responder agencies to finalize the regulations.
As work continues to implement the new regulations, these organization will be key to ensuring that consistent and appropriate training, assessment, oversight and continuing competency measures are in place to ensure that paramedics and first responders can provide the new services safely and competently.
The changes have been made after input and consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, including Ambulance Paramedics of BC (CUPE 873), the BC Professional Fire Fighters Association, the Fire Chiefs Association of BC, BCEHS, Emergency Medical Assistant training programs and paramedics in the industry. The changes are intended to update the scope of practice for paramedics and first responders to align with other jurisdictions and have been modernized to allow for the incorporation of future innovations in emergency technology.
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