On May 5, 2025, the Ontario government introduced Bill 11, the proposed More Convenient Care Act, 2025 (“MCCA”), a legislative initiative aimed at supporting the province’s long-term healthcare goals for first reading. Bill 11 proceeded to second reading on May 12. The MCCA builds on Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care, a report outlining the government’s strategy for better connecting residents with the health services they require while strengthening the healthcare system’s capacity and workforce. According to the government, the proposed changes are designed to address gaps in access, transparency, and service delivery across hospitals, long-term care homes, and community care settings.
What’s In the Act: A Summary
The MCCA includes six schedules, each updating a different aspect of the healthcare system.
Strengthening governance and transparency
The MCCA introduces several governance-related measures with the stated aim of improving oversight and accountability:
- City of Hamilton Act, 1999 (Schedule 1): Establishes a Board of Health for the City of Hamilton, clarifying its governance under the Health Protection and Promotion Act.
- Connecting Care Act, 2019 (Schedule 2): Applies the French Language Services Act to applicable service organizations, ensuring access to services in French where required.
- Health Care Staffing Agency Reporting Act, 2025 (Schedule 3): Establishes a transparency framework for staffing agencies in the hospital, long-term care, and community health sectors. Healthcare facility staffing agencies must disclose administrative mark-up rates and must submit reports to the Minister of Health with aggregate information on administrative, billing and pay rates. The agencies are also required to maintain records, and the Minister may publish parts of the submitted information.
Improving service delivery
To ensure consistency and responsiveness in public health measures:
- Health Protection and Promotion Act (Schedule 4): Requires local medical officers of health to obtain written approval from the Chief Medical Officer of Health before issuing class orders. This change aims to ensure more consistent and aligned application of public health directives across regions by enhancing the Chief Medical Officer of Health’s oversight and authority.
Enhancing patient care
The MCCA includes changes aimed at expanding access to care and modernizing patient services:
- Mandatory Blood Testing Act, 2006 (Schedule 5): Authorizes nurse practitioners to perform many functions in that Act currently restricted to physicians, including completing and signing mandatory blood testing forms. These changes thereby broaden access to care for individuals such as crime victims, correctional officers, members of the College of Nurses of Ontario, medical or nursing students, and paramedics.
- Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (Schedule 6): Establishes a regulatory structure for digital health identifiers. With an individual’s consent, a prescribed organization is authorized to collect, use, and disclose personal health information for purposes related to digital health identifiers, such as identity verification and account management. The prescribed organization is considered as a health information custodian for these purposes and is subject to new privacy rules, security requirements, breach notification obligations, and offences. These updates aim to ensure the secure and effective management of digital health information and support the modernization of the provincial electronic health record (EHR). This will enable eligible Ontarians to access their personal health information online safely and securely, such as through Health811.
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