5.1 Relevance
VIP supports independence at home for Veterans and other clients who require support related to aging, disability, convalescence and mental health issues. While its delivery has evolved to meet diverse needs, the functional guidance has not kept pace leading to reported inconsistencies in the approval of benefits, in particular, for applications related to mental health, temporary needs and the needs of younger Veterans. In 2020, to begin to address this, VAC completed a pilot to improve the clarity and ease-of-use of VIP functional guidance documents. Veteran Service Agents who participated in this pilot reported spending less time searching for information. A strong next step would be to further clarify functional guidance specific to mental health needs, temporary needs and the needs of younger Veterans.
VIP elements are comprehensive and comparable to similar programs in other jurisdictions. Home care is a key component along the continuum of care for aging Veterans and VIP helps people to fulfil their desire to remain at home as long as possible while contributing to a more cost-effective long term care strategy. VIP is also seeing more applications for VIP related to mental health needs and other needs not related to aging. The decreased frequency of follow-up with clients, especially for those who are more vulnerable could result in clients’ having needs that are not identified or met.
5.2 Achievement of intended outcomes
The evaluation confirmed VIP is meeting its intended outcome of supporting Veterans to remain independent in their home. Program recipients are satisfied with VIP and agree it meets their needs. VIP was found to delay entry into long term care for older Veterans and has additional benefits such as improved quality of life and reduced reliance on informal caregivers. There is limited data to determine barriers to access VIP or differential impacts for specific groups of clients (e.g., gender and/or age). However, the results of the 2020 National Client survey indicates that Indigenous or visible minority clients are less apt to say the program meets their needs. Additionally, the VIP supports that are available to PCGs and survivors could reflect dated and gendered assumptions about housekeeping and grounds maintenance duties within the household that were in place when the Veteran’s benefits were calculated.
“This increasingly “light touch” may be more of a concern for elderly clients whose needs can evolve quickly.”
“[We/VAC] stopped paying visits to elderly vets, they didn’t demand much, we stopped doing home visits. If you asked these people how they are doing over the phone they’ll say fine but if you go to their house, there’s nothing in the fridge and they are not doing well.”
~Key informant interview respondents
5.3 Efficiency
While some elements of the program such as the use of the grant determination tool have contributed to efficiency, there is an opportunity to improve the precision of the grant determination tool and to enhance efficiency and capacity through additional/clarified guidance and tools.