Advancing quality of care for mental health and substance use health
In March 2022, the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) and the Government of Canada committed to improving the delivery of services for mental health and substance use health. The goal was to establish standards to help formalize what Canadians can expect in terms of the timeliness and quality of services, and address stigma related to mental health and substance use health services.
We are pleased to announce that the six standards-based solutions are now available to help address priority areas:
- National workshop agreement - Integrating mental health and substance use health with primary care in Canada
- Bridging the gap - A comprehensive review and public consultation on mental health and substance use health apps
- Pan-Canadian guidance for integrated youth services
- National workshop agreement for early psychosis intervention
- National workshop agreement - Substance use health-related withdrawal management services in Canada
- Publicly available specification - Substance use health competencies for all prescribers
These standards-based documents are a foundation for the future. We encourage the use and uptake of these documents by service providers, regulators and all organizations in the mental health and substance use health environment, so that people across Canada can have access to consistent and quality services.
Thank you to Homewood Research Institute, CSA Group, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Health Standards Organization, Foundry and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction for their work on these documents.
In addition to coordinating the development of these standards-based solutions, SCC led the formation of the National Mental Health and Substance Use Health (MHSUH) Standardization Collaborative, which was established to bring diverse perspectives together to examine nationwide standardization efforts and ultimately provide recommendations and insights.
Over two years, we engaged with over 300 people from government, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis governments and communities, experts, academics, researchers, academic and research bodies, people with lived and living experience, industry, providers, professional associations, pan-Canadian health organizations, and standards development bodies.
The resulting Roadmap explores areas for further study and consideration, and offers potential pathways as a way forward, serving as a resource for navigating the future of MHSUH in Canada. It is a call to action for interested parties to advance MHSUH infrastructure and share best practices. Visit our publications page to read the roadmap .
We would like to thank the hundreds of individuals who dedicated their time and insight to the work of the collaborative.