Category: The law, rights and community practice

…”the role that health and justice partnerships can play in a strong public health care system and in improving health outcomes for community members”

A panel discussion from the Community Legal Education Ontario

“Partnerships between health care and the legal sector in Ontario: What’s next”

… Complex social factors such as precarious housing, poverty, discrimination, precarious immigration status, and intimate partner violence can often lead to legal issues that have a significant impact on health. Health and justice partnerships involve health care and legal practitioners working together to find solutions to address factors that can contribute to poor health.

In Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this interdisciplinary model has been successful at promoting individual and community health as well as at addressing health inequities.

Join our expert panelists to hear about the role that health and justice partnerships can play in a strong public health care system and in improving health outcomes for community members. Panelists include Lee Ann Chapman, Michele Leering, and Dr. Rami Shoucri. ”

When –December 7th, 2023 10:00 AM through 11:30 AM
Location –Online Webinar ON Canada

Register here: Partnerships between health care and the legal sector in Ontario: What’s next – CLEO Outreach

Call for public comments: mental health and addiction service organizational standards

This consultation by Health Standards Organization (HSO) https://healthstandards.org/ on standards for mental health and addiction services seems, rather important if the weaving of: care system change, organizational accreditation and practice change are in play, NOW.

• Population health, service planning, and design
• Prepared and competent teams
• Access to services
• Client rights and ethical considerations
• Timely, comprehensive, and coordinated services
• Medication and prescribing practices
• Quality improvement …

(image: cover of report stating a draft for review and TM “people powered health”)

About the standards

… CAN/HSO 22004:2021(E) Mental Health and Addiction addresses the provision of high-quality and safe mental health and addiction care and services. The standard is applicable to all health and social service organizations providing mental health and/or addiction services.

The standard is intended to be used as a tool to improve the quality, effectiveness and outcomes related to programs and services for people who experience mental health illnesses and addictions. This standard also aims to address barriers to care that people with mental health illnesses and/or addictions often face when trying to access services such as lack of timely, relevant support; stigma; and difficulty navigating multiple intersecting systems and sectors.

The standard follows the client’s health and wellness journey through the health and social service system, including in-patient and community-based settings.

Divided into seven sub-sections, CAN/HSO 22004:2021(E) Mental Health and Addiction will provide criteria and guidelines to assess the quality and safety of health and social service organizations providing mental health and/or addiction services. The sub-sections are:
• Population health, service planning, and design
• Prepared and competent teams
• Access to services
• Client rights and ethical considerations
• Timely, comprehensive, and coordinated services
• Medication and prescribing practices
• Quality improvement …

Go to the Review site here: https://healthstandards.org/public-reviews/

About The Health Standards Organization (HSO) 

What is HSO?

HSO stands for Health Standards Organization. Formed in February 2017, our goal is to unleash the power and potential of people around the world who share our passion for achieving quality health services for all. We are a registered non-profit headquartered in Ottawa, Canada.

What does that mean?

Our focus is on developing standards, assessment programs and other tools to help care providers do what they do best: save and improve lives. Recognized by the Standards Council of Canada, we are the only Standards Development Organization solely dedicated to health and social services.

Where did HSO come from?

HSO is building on the strength of nearly 60 years of experience by Accreditation Canada, Canada’s leading health care accreditation body.

In 2016, we consulted more than 700 stakeholders across Canada and around the world to understand how best to put our collective learnings to work. Key takeaways from this review included:

  • Standards development must be separate from conducting assessments in order to be the best-in-class at both

  • The accreditation process must be more accountable and transparent, with a stronger focus on outcomes and consistency

  • Standards and assessments need to be easily actionable, clinically relevant, and tailored to local contexts

  • Patients (and their families), practitioners and policy-makers all play critical roles in improving health globally

Go to their site here: https://healthstandards.org/about/

hso-logo-red

City of Ottawa Anti-Racism Secretariat: Action Planning Survey

This survey notes that the secretariat is seeking linkages with people and groups.  A useful step for integrating our community and systems.

Action Planning Survey

The focus of this survey and other ARS public engagements is less on identifying needs and consulting with residents, as that has been thoroughly undertaken through past City efforts. The focus instead is upon engaging with communities to identify actions to address and challenge systemic racism in the City.

Link to the survey and Secretariat outreach: https://engage.ottawa.ca/anti-racism-and-ethnocultural-relations-initiatives

Everyday health care practice in law, policy, research and governance: bridging to practice change

The University of Ottawa Centre for Health Care Law, Policy and Ethics is working to open the dialogue on health care and practice change, which may well help us with system level change.  One effort is to have open presentations that bridge and explain the dynamics between our laws, policy and practice, shared and recorded via virtual presentations. 

I think the law is a much more dynamic and evolving guide to practice than most of us realize.  When I say realize, I know we know, about the rule of law, but seldom do many of us on the frontlines, even directors and CEO’s have a sense we are able to enter this level of our systems of society and nudge or influence it.  The centre aims to demonstrate to us how evolving court cases, research can be bridged to our regulatory colleges, policy guidelines that land at our organizations.

… Innovation in medicine offers tremendous hope. But it requires similar innovation in governance—in law, policy, and ethics—for society to fully realize the fruits and avoid the pitfalls. For example, how can we incorporate tomorrow’s AI technology into healthcare while avoiding accidental bias and discrimination? Can we apply insights from neuroscience to improve our criminal justice system for cases where mental illness is a factor? And as long as the list of tomorrow’s challenges is, there are as many gaps and shortfalls in what we already have: Many Canadians die waiting for organ transplants each year yet most people are not registered donors. Pathogens will inevitably out-evolve our current antibiotics and we aren’t developing new ones fast enough. The list goes on…

Please check out some of their presentations here: https://www.ottawahealthlaw.ca/pastevents

Bridging to on the ground care and organizational practice

I as many of you, struggle each day with how we communicate within and between organizational systems.  These researchers take an important step to address this in the context of homelessness services in this article: Legal, geographic and organizational contexts that shape knowledge sharing in the hospital discharge process for people experiencing homelessness in Toronto, Canada Jesse I. R. Jenkinson Carol Strike Stephen W. Hwang Erica Di Ruggiero https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13206

…  We find that within the legal context of health information protection, the concept of “circle of care” has created barriers to knowledge sharing between hospitals and shelters by excluding shelter workers from discharge planning. We note, however, that the degree to which hospital workers have navigated these barriers and brought shelter workers into the discharge process varies across hospitals. …

I’m going to pitch this to the Centre and the article researchers and see what might evolve as it would be useful to bring in more of a law interpretation and at least get a greater sense of the evolving law on circle of care.  I say evolve because for sure law and care is in “process.” I also realize I may well be simply wishing or dreaming that this ongoing struggle of communications in health care can be effectively addressed, given the… mixed success track record. 

Webinar – Families, Clients and PHIPA (health information sharing) in Mental Health

Webinar -Useful and indepth, grounded in actual practice – with case examples.

… “It was clear that both caregivers and providers could benefit from a resource that would set the record straight about how Ontario’s privacy and consent rules apply to them. In this report, The Change Foundation set out to address these concerns …”

See the site with background documents
http://www.changefoundation.ca/caregiver-privacy-consent-r…/

 See the webinar

Learn more about the Ontario Patient Ombudsman via their in depth annual report

The 2016/17 Annual Report and website of the Ontario Patient Ombudsman who is mandated to: 

 … champion for fairness in Ontario’s health sector organizations defined as public hospitals, long-term care homes and home and community care services coordinated by the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs, formerly CCACs).

It would be useful to hear from practitioners/clients their local experience here in Ottawa as this new initiative has great potential to contribute to care change/improvements.

 

Ontario Patient Ombudsman

…we are asking patients and caregivers to continue to be fearless in bringing their complaints to our office and for health sector organizations to be fearless in working with us to help improve Ontario’s healthcare system.

See the report here:https://patientombudsman.ca/About-Us/Patient-Ombudsmans-Message

Narratives of Social Workers involvement in social control in mental health yet wrestling with “the system”

This article provides a view of how the British mental health system framed social work practice under their mental health law. 

Abstract

The paper explores the notion of ‘dirty work’ in relation to the newly created role of the Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP). An AMHP undertakes various duties set out in the 1983 Mental Health Act, as amended by the 2007 Act, in relation to assessments to make applications for compulsory admission to psychiatric hospital. It has been argued that undertaking this social control function is ‘dirty work’. However, the findings from a study of social work AMHPs in England suggest that the picture is more complex. Extracts from narrative interviews are analysed using dialogical narrative analysis. Rather than being designated as dirty work, AMHP duty was presented as prestigious and as advanced social work. However, through their storytelling, the social workers clearly delineated the aspects of AMHP work that they did designate as dirty, specifically the lack of beds, the complexities of co-ordination and the emotional labour which is an inherent part of the work.

The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 46, Issue 3, 1 April 2016, Pages 703–718,https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcv009
Published: 26 February 2015

Final Report on Legal Capacity, Decision-making and Guardianship from Ontario’s Law Reform Commission

After years of work in developing the report, the Law Commission of Ontario’s final report with suggestions on implementation.

http://www.lco-cdo.org/en/our-…ng-and-guardianship/

These laws have a profound impact on the wellbeing of the individuals addressing both the protection of the autonomy of affected individuals and the risks of abuse and exploitation of individuals who may be vulnerable.

This project responds to public concerns regarding:

  • Misuse of powers of attorney;
  • Inappropriate interventions in lives of elderly Ontarians and Ontarians with disabilities;
  • Complex, lengthy and costly resolution of legal disputes;
  • Widespread lack of understanding among individuals, families, health and legal professionals, institutions, community agencies, and others; and,
  • Need to update Ontario’s laws in light of significant impact of demographic, legal, and social changes since these laws were introduced.

The LCO’s report is the most comprehensive analysis of Ontario’s framework governing legal capacity, decision-making and guardianship laws in nearly 30 years. Ontario’s current legislative regime for legal capacity, decision-making and guardianship took shape following several provincial reports in the late 1980s – early 1990s.

 

Mental health and human rights: What have human rights ever done for me?

From Christopher Snowdon, author and freelance journalist @Sectioned_, service user and (micro)blogger

You’ll often see me banging on on twitter about human rights (often using the hashtag #humanrights). Why have I got such a bee in my bonnet about human rights? Aren’t they just for journalists locked up in foreign jails, prisoners banned from voting or from being sent books, refugees? Aren’t they just about freedom of expression, torture, death row inmates? And why do they even matter if the government scraps the Human Rights Act, as we’ve heard the Conservative party propose recently? These are all important questions. … (go to rest of article below)

Human Rights Act 1988 Articles BIHR

Source: Mental health and human rights: What have human rights ever done for me?