Ontario Health is currently in the process of developing core services for mental health and addictions for the province of Ontario.
The Ontario Health Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence has as one of its early priorities to establish the core services for mental health and addiction care in the province. The early focus will be on identifying high prevalence, high priority populations with existing funding including early psychosis intervention, schizophrenia care, Assertive Community Treatment, substance use disorder services, children’s live-in treatment and/or other high intensity services. These funded services have clearly defined populations, clinical leadership, existing evidence and guidelines and some data. The COE’s planned approach will leverage the National Needs-based Planning Project and will prioritize the following activities:
- Better understand the needs of the population
- Compile an inventory of services available and resources invested
- Evaluate whether the available services are achieving the intended outcomes
- Develop an evidence-based program to deliver improvements
- Align investments with the evidence (to fill gaps) and accountability with performance (to deliver better outcomes)
Core services for mental health and addictions
The concept of identifying ‘core’ mental health and addictions services for Ontario is not new. It was initially proposed in 2010 by the Select Committee on Mental Health and Addictions of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. The Select Committee had recommended the creation of “core institutional, residential and community services that should be available in every region of the province for clients of all ages.” Similarly, in 2012, as part of its Moving on Mental Health strategy, Ontario’s Ministry of Children and Youth Services had also identified the need for “core mental health services that will be available in communities across Ontario, with other specialized services available regionally or provincially.”
Creating core services addresses the key question of which mental health and addictions services ought to be provided in a high-performing system. Elements of a system consisting of a core services are based on identifying a set of ‘essential’ (“core”) services that span both community and hospital systems and recognizing that those core services:
- have dedicated funding support
- are available, (i.e. capacity with low wait times for all Ontarians who need the services)
- are accessible in all regions of the province, (i.e. provided locally, or having access to out of area services, such as residential addiction treatment; tertiary psychiatric inpatient services)