Transparency Grade: D-

Health Connect Registry

Limited reliable data available

This is an area where government has deliberately misrepresented information, both during the 2024 election campaign and previously. A few notable examples follow.

We often hear statistics about the number of people "connected to a family doctor or nurse practitioner," e.g. 248,000 people from Jul/2023–Oct/2024. Presumably this is the number of people pulled off the Health Connect Registry. Not mentioned is how many people were disconnected from a family doctor or NP during that time. People always lose doctors... they move, change jobs, retire, etc. Churn is normal. And what about patients who attend a meet-and-greet with a doctor who doesn't accept them into their practice? There is no mention of net attachment. In other words, are we further ahead, or not?

"We will make sure everyone who wants a family doctor or nurse practitioner gets one by the end of 2025" - based on a hypothetical extrapolation of data saying they expect to match another 160,000 in the next six months (after the election). Not grounded in reality. And not even in mathematics. Even if you were to believe that 160,000 in six months (from Oct/2024), that would still match 360,000 people (again, forget about those losing their doctors). But with > 1M without one…?

"88% of people in BC have a family doctor" was a whopper that came out in the election campaign. Where did this come from? Not the BC government's actual data. An "election priorities" document from Doctors of BC contained the line "more than 700,000 patients are still without a family doctor in BC." So that's 12.7% of BC's population, so... 88% have a doctor. Except that the 700,000 number was equally pulled from the air because no data was available. They chose a deliberately conservative number that they could defend. It's not saying the real number isn't a LOT more than 700k.

There's a lot of cherry-picked data and blatant misrepresentations of unreliable estimates being released for propaganda purposes, but little real data is published, though it is available internally.

Attachment and population stats

The very fine-print figure below was obtained from a FOI request that did provide statistics on the number of people on the HCR at a variety of time (Aug/2023–Nov/2024), broken down by primary care network across the province.

As of Nov/2024, in some PCNs, there is essentially nobody waiting on the list; the highest has > 43,000 people waiting.

However, as another FOI notes, that doesn't tell the complete story.

A FOI for Westshore gave a good snapshot for May/2025. At the time, over 30% of Westshore residents are not attached to primary care.

68% are attached.

Of the rest, 17% are on the govt's HCR (Health Connect Registry, i.e., waiting list). 18% are not on that waiting list for whatever reason.

24% of those on HCR are currently attached to another provider—presumably that's not working out so well, whether because they've moved, are dissatisfied with access/service, etc.

The latter stat reinforces that just being nominally "attached" to primary care is very different from having usable access to needed primary care services.

What's missing?

Any reliable and representative sources of data about access to primary care.