National Paediatric Surgical Wait Times Strategy

The Canadian populace would be surprised to learn that the children and youth of Canada, like their adult counterparts, encounter significant barriers to timely health care. The impact of lengthy waits for medical procedures for any patient can result in unnecessary and deleterious effects on health and quality of life such as prolonged pain, disability, emotional distress, health complications, personal economic hardship, and increased health costs.  For children, failure to provide timely service can have even more serious outcomes.

In November 2005, Dr. Brian Postl, Federal Adviser on Wait Times to the Prime Minister, approached the Canadian Child & Youth Health Coalition (CCYHC) to lead an initiative to develop recommendations for a national paediatric surgical wait times strategy.  In February 2006, the Coalition, in collaboration with the Paediatric Surgical Chiefs of Canada, hosted the National Workshop on Paediatric Surgical Wait Times to develop these recommendations.  Representatives from all sixteen paediatric academic health centres across Canada came together and unanimously endorsed a framework and methodology to establish national access targets for ten paediatric surgical subspecialties.

Drawing from a national pool of experts, the Strategy builds on the collective work of provincial groups across Canada and is fashioned after the model developed by the Ontario Children’s Health Network (OCHN). The child surgical wait times strategy was designed to complement the work on adult wait times while highlighting the uniqueness of paediatrics.

The strategy sets out to:

• Establish national access targets for ten paediatric subspecialties
• Determine the current wait time ”burden” i.e. the number of children across Canada who are not receiving care within the established access targets
• Develop strategies to optimally manage wait times
• Assess the system’s capacity to provide timely care and
• Develop  resource allocation recommendations

As part of The National Wait Times Strategy, the National Paediatric Surgical Wait Times Strategy will ensure that children find their rightful place. The Strategy will serve as a model for Paediatric Wait Times Strategies in other high priority areas where children and youth wait for essential health care services.

"Children Wait Too": Executive Summary (March, 2006)
“Children Wait Too": Final Report (April, 2006)
“Children Wait Too": Access Targets (April, 2006)

Surgical Wait Time Guarantee Initiative