A national palliative care training standard for long-term care needed to improve resident care, better support families, and reduce avoidable hospital transfers.
Ottawa, ON – May 29, 2026 — Pallium Canada, alongside national partners across long-term care, frontline care providers, workforce training, and accreditation, has launched a campaign for a National Palliative Care Training Standard for Long-Term Care, calling on the federal government to invest $300 million over five years to support its implementation.
The initiative will establish a national, role-based training standard for the long-term care workforce, supported by dedicated implementation funding that will provide mentorship, coaching, workflow integration, leadership development, and performance measurement to ensure training translates into real changes in care. It is designed to equip staff across all roles with practical skills, tools, and supports that improve care delivery, strengthen consistency, and better support residents and families.
“Currently, we are asking long-term care teams to care for residents with increasingly complex needs without consistently giving them the training and support they require,” said Jeffrey Moat, Chief Executive Officer of Pallium Canada. “This is not a failure of compassion. It is a failure of system design. This initiative is about closing that gap with a practical, national solution.”
As Canada’s population ages, residents in long-term care are frequently living for months or years with serious and incurable illnesses such as dementia, which would benefit from a palliative approach to care. Yet frontline teams are often providing care to residents who have increasingly complex needs without consistent access to palliative care training and support. Data shows that 81% of long-term care residents do not have documented evidence of receiving palliative care in their last year of life, contributing to unnecessary suffering, distress for families, and avoidable pressure on hospitals. Too often, residents are transferred to overcrowded emergency departments when they could have received appropriate care in the place they call home.
Dr. Amit Arya, a palliative care physician working across ten long-term care homes in Toronto, emphasized the front-line impact of earlier and more consistent integration of a palliative approach.
“When a palliative approach is introduced early, residents are more comfortable, experience improved quality of life, and receive care that is aligned with what matters most to them. Families are better supported through difficult decisions,” said Dr. Arya. “Without earlier integration of a palliative approach, care often becomes reactive, with too many residents being transferred to overcrowded emergency departments when they could have been cared for where they live.”
Frontline workers, particularly support workers, are central to delivering this care but often lack access to consistent, practical training and the time to complete it.
“Support workers are closest to residents and families every day, and they are already delivering a palliative approach, often without the tools or support they need,” said Miranda Romanowicz, CEO of the Canadian Support Workers Association. “This initiative is about making sure they have the practical education, time, and support required to provide comfort and dignity when residents need it most.”
This initiative is designed to support long-term care homes, not burden them. The standard will be co-developed with the sector and aligned with existing accreditation and quality improvement systems, avoiding duplication and respecting provincial and territorial responsibilities.
Strengthening palliative care capacity in long-term care will allow more residents to receive appropriate care in place, reducing unnecessary transfers to emergency departments and hospitals and improving overall system performance.
“Long-term care homes want to provide this level of care, but they need the right supports in place to do it consistently,” said Jodi Hall, Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Association for Long-Term Care. “A national approach to training, backed by real implementation support, will help ensure teams have what they need to deliver high-quality care in the place residents call home.”
This initiative presents a clear opportunity to move from recognizing a long-standing gap to implementing a practical solution. With the right federal investment and partnerships, Canada can ensure long-term care teams are equipped to deliver consistent, high-quality palliative care where people live, improving outcomes for the health care system and, most importantly, for the residents and families in its care.
For more information, please contact:
Barbara Barrett
Impact Canada
343-998-8906
barbara@impactcanada.com
About Pallium Canada
Pallium Canada is a Canadian, registered charitable organization focused on building professional and community capacity to help improve the quality and accessibility of palliative care in Canada. With over twenty-five years of experience and over 100,000 learners reached, Pallium Canada has become the largest palliative care education provider for health systems and health care organizations across Canada, with broad experience and expertise working with partners to implement large-scale regional and provincial capacity-building initiatives.
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