Although they were isolated to just one employee, the Department understands the seriousness of these incidents and wants Veterans to trust that VAC employees are available to support their needs in a respectful and compassionate manner. While early actions have been taken to ensure this type of incident does not happen again, further actions aimed at maintaining Veterans’ trust will be taken.
Moving forward, the Department will:
- Strengthen and deliver mandatory and clear employee training and materials on MAiD for new and existing frontline staff
- Establish enhanced reporting procedures immediately that will ensure that significant incidents are raised to the Assistant Deputy Minister and Deputy Minister levels more quickly where appropriate.
- Increase Monitoring for Issues and Trends
- Conduct a Review of the Escalation Process — to be led by the Department’s Audit and Evaluation Division
- Consult with Veterans and stakeholders on recording telephone conversations with case managers and Veteran service agents
Strengthen and deliver mandatory employee training on MAiD
- Prior to this incident, there was no specific guidance on MAiD included in VAC’s training materials because it was understood that Veterans should only discuss MAiD considerations with their primary care provider. Explicit guidance around MAiD and how to have conversations about MAiD is now included in VAC’s training program for new and existing employees. Going forward, training on MAiD will be mandatory and it will reinforce that providing advice on MAiD is not a VAC service and will provide information on the available programs and services offered to support the health and well-being of Veterans.
- VAC has created training specialized for all employees who provide direct, front-line support to Veterans. Work is underway to standardize training for all front-line employees and ensure staff have access to consistent information. The Department is committed to ensuring staff has the tools and training they need to do their jobs. It will be looking at how it can learn from this situation with a focus on ensuring Veterans receive the best possible support from VAC.
Establish enhanced reporting procedures and strengthen processes
This incident has highlighted the need for VAC to review its quality assurance (QA) framework across the full spectrum of services delivered to Veterans and their families. VAC is committed to exploring QA from a broader service delivery to Veterans lens. With service points across the country, VAC is continually working to improve service to Veterans and further steps will be taken to strengthen its existing QA processes with a goal to:
- Ensure the quality of service is exceptional at every step of the process and follows the standards of practice, policy, directives, guidelines and business processes as intended, and
- Allow employee performance concerns to be addressed as they occur and provide frontline staff with regular feedback on the quality of their work.
- Identify opportunities to improve how VAC delivers services to Veterans, former RCMP members and their families.
Through the investigation, the reporting process for alerting all levels of management about significant incidents in a timely manner was identified as a weakness. A new business process has been developed that will help to ensure when Veterans raise MAiD with front-line staff, employees are to advise their supervisors and Area Director so it can be escalated to senior management. If a Veteran raises MAiD, employees are directed to raise it with their manager. The manager and area director now escalate it to the Director General of Field Operations. If further investigation reveals any inappropriate action, the incident would then be raised to the Assistant Deputy Minister Service Delivery and the Deputy Minister. Front-line staff have received training on this new business process to ensure it is understood and fully implemented. This process will be examined as part of the Audit and Evaluation Division’s review to identify ways to make it as efficient and effective as possible.
During fiscal year-end performance management discussions, managers will engage front-line staff in discussions about MAiD to determine if they have any related training needs or questions about the new guidance on MAiD and to identify further opportunities for improvement. Starting on April 1, 2023, area directors will have a new commitment added to their Performance Management Agreements requiring them to conduct increased QA monitoring of files, phone calls and secure messages.
Increase monitoring for issues and trends
VAC’s existing QA efforts will also be further enhanced to include specific monitoring around how frontline employees are handling discussions about MAiD, as well as any other emerging issues. Since November 2022, additional resources have focused on increasing monitoring and oversight.
- Calls to the NCCN are recorded and managers regularly review these recordings for quality assurance and training purposes. Managers are now reviewing more calls for each analyst — more than doubling the volume of calls being monitored. Reviewing more calls will help to identify staff learning needs and it will also help the Department to quickly identify service delivery trends and emerging issues.
- Secure messages received from Veterans via MyVAC Account will continue to be regularly reviewed. For new staff working on secure messages, managers will review their first 30 secure messages. On an ongoing basis, 7 messages per month will be reviewed for each staff member responding to secure messages. This represents 2% of messages being reviewed which is the accepted industry standard. When applicable, staff use pre-written response templates to ensure standardized service and quality.
- Increased review of call recordings and file reviews will allow management to identify issues at the individual level and correct it with the employee. If trends are identified broader training might be required to help address any gaps. Management will discuss these trends at the regular Field Operations Management Committee meetings.
In addition to strengthening QA efforts, VAC will continue to regularly survey Veterans to gauge satisfaction and areas of concern. For example, the NCCN measures their level of satisfaction with the service received by offering the option of completing a survey after the call. Feedback from these surveys and other program-specific surveys will enable VAC to identify further opportunities to improve service to Veterans and their families.
2023 escalation process review by Departmental Audit and Evaluation Division
The Department’s Audit and Evaluation Division will conduct an independent and objective review of the escalation process. This will include the processes and procedures in place in the Service Delivery Branch for the identification, reporting and following up on sensitive/significant incidents raised by Veterans (or brought to the attention of VAC). This review is expected to commence in April 2023, and opportunities for improvement identified in the review will be fully implemented.
Consultation with Veterans & stakeholders on recording telephone conversations
Currently, the only calls VAC records are those to the National Contact Centre Network (NCCN). Since this incident came to light, it has been suggested that calls between Veterans and the VAC employees who serve them should be recorded. Others have raised privacy concerns about recording conversations and how it could damage the building of a trusting relationship between the Veteran and VAC employees serving them. Recording conversations would be a significant shift in practice for VAC, however the Department is open to hearing from Veterans on this approach.
In 2023, the Department will use a variety of channels to engage with Veterans and stakeholders to get their feedback on recording calls between a Veteran and their case manager or their Veteran service agent. Through a consultation process, VAC will assess the impact it could have on Veterans, determine how it could be beneficial for Veterans, and hear any other concerns Veterans may have. In addition to meeting with Veterans’ organizations, the Department will use its Let’s Talk Veterans online consultation tool to take the pulse of opinions on the recording of calls. The Department is also reviewing other federal and provincial government departments’ policies related to recording conversations with clients. All input gathered will help to refine a proposed way forward in improving service to Veterans. Veterans can rest assured that no changes will be made until after a full and thorough consultation process has taken place.