March 27th, 2025
Meeting the Call
As we wrap up our fiscal year and look back over 2024, we’re struck by how much the Patient Ombudsman team accomplished and continues to strive toward. Last year was one filled with listening, learning and leading that is reflected in our 2023/24 annual report, which highlights how the team handled increased complaints and carried our more investigations all while taking on a new sector to its jurisdiction and adjusting our processes to improve the quality of our service.
The year started with the release of our three-year strategic plan, which outlines how we aim to build awareness of our services; provide excellent service to those we work with; and to improve the fairness of the health care experience for everyone. Throughout 2024, we met with more than 20 stakeholders that represent all four health sectors under our jurisdiction, as well as organizations that represent caregivers, mental health care, Indigenous health, and more. This ongoing outreach allowed us to share our work, to listen to the challenges these stakeholders are facing, and to discuss how proactively including fairness into health organizations’ processes can results in better experiences for patients, residents, and caregivers.
In addition to this valuable outreach, Patient Ombudsman staff resolved more than 4,400 complaints and completed two investigations in fiscal 2023/24, which provide recommendations on ensuring fairer hospital discharge processes for vulnerable youth and that allegations of abuse or neglect are appropriately investigated and resolved.
We also focused on efficiency: in summer 2023, the office eliminated the backlog of cases that had risen due to COVID-19 and adapted its processes to improve response times, significantly reducing the number of days to assign and close cases.
We’re proud to have accomplished these milestones all while our mandate expanded to include more than 900 community surgical and diagnostic centres, allowing us to meet an even greater call for help resolving health care concerns.
Our latest annual report provides these highlights and more about our work to identify gaps in the health care experience, which leads to opportunities for improvement and, ultimately, better care.