TORONTO, Canada – To protect Ontario’s health-care system and provide more connected and convenient care to people around the province, the government is allowing pharmacists to administer additional publicly funded vaccines that protect against six diseases and assess and prescribe for a further nine common ailments. This historic expansion of their scope of practice will improve access to care and reduce pressure on the health-care system by empowering health professionals to provide care to the full extent of their training and making pharmacies a one-stop location for convenient, everyday care.
“Our government is delivering on our plan to make it more convenient for people to access the care they need, closer to home,” said Sylvia Jones, deputy premier and minister of health. “Ontarians have experienced firsthand the convenience of pharmacist prescribing, and today’s announcement continues our progress to reduce wait times and let more of our province’s health-care professionals work to the full extent of their expertise”.
Beginning July 2026, pharmacists across the province will be able to administer six additional publicly funded vaccines for eligible Ontarians, including.
- Tetanus – Pertussis – Diphtheria – Pneumococcal
- RSV and Shingles vaccines.
Under the current model, these publicly funded vaccines are only available to patients through a visit to a doctor’s office, walk-in clinic or other clinical settings. Under the new expanded scope of practice, families will now be able to receive critical vaccines more easily at thousands of additional locations across the province, with pharmacy technicians and qualified staff able to administer all eligible vaccines.
The province is also allowing pharmacists to assess and prescribe for nine additional common ailments, with plans to add up to five more in early 2027, bringing the total expanded number up to 33. Starting July 2026, pharmacists and qualified health-care practitioners will be able to treat the following ailments:
- Calluses and corns – Dandruff – Dry eye – Head lice
- Jock itch – Mild headache – Nasal congestion – Ringworm and Warts
This expansion builds on the province’s previous actions to increase scope of practice which has seen Ontario pharmacies provide care in over 2.4 million assessments for the first 19 common ailments. Today, over 99 percent of all Ontario’s pharmacies now participate in the program, connecting people to care in every corner of the province.
In addition to these changes, the government has now officially directed Ontario’s regulatory colleges for optometrists, physiotherapists, chiropractors, dental hygienists, denturists, and audiologists and speech-language pathologists to begin developing the regulatory framework that would further expand scopes of practice in their fields.
These future expansions will unlock additional capacity across the system by enabling professionals to deliver treatments and perform more procedures, helping people get faster access to care. Once implemented, these changes will improve access for those in rural, northern, Indigenous and underserved communities, while reducing wait times and easing pressure on primary care and emergency departments.
As part of Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care, the Ontario government is strengthening all aspects of the health-care system, including making it easier for highly skilled, regulated health-care professionals, like pharmacists, to work to the full extent of their training and expertise to provide people more connected and convenient care.
Quick facts
Pharmacist assessment of common ailments began in January 2023, with an initial 13 ailments, and was expanded in October 2023 to include six additional ailments.
Ontario is not proceeding with scope expansions related to psychologists at this time, given the ongoing governance review involving the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario.
The province also allows pharmacists to administer certain injection and inhalation treatments so they can better care for people who need help taking certain medications, such as insulin, vitamin B12 or osteoporosis treatment.
On July 1, 2022, regulatory amendments came into force under the Laboratory and Specimen Collection Centre Licensing Act, allowing pharmacy professionals to collect specimens and perform the following point-of-care tests for the purpose of medication management to treat chronic disease: Glucose, HbA1c, Lipids, and PT/INR.
“Pharmacists play a critical role in improving access to timely, high-quality health care across Ontario, and expanded scope enables them to meet patients where and when care is needed most. At the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, we are training practice ready pharmacists—through innovation, hands on learning and an accelerated, three-year Doctor of Pharmacy program—to fully deliver on this expanded role. Today’s announcement strengthens our health system by ensuring Ontarians benefit from a workforce prepared to provide care now and into the future.” – Dr Lisa Dolovich, Dean, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto.