Cultural Safety

CULTURAL SAFETY
Cultural safety
Name of the student:
Name of the organization:
Author’s note

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Part 1: Position statement for an organization delivering cultural safe health care:
Background of the Organization:
The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health (NACCHO) is a national peak
organization that works to fulfil the aspirations of the Aboriginal communities. It represents 143
Aboriginal Controlled Health Services (ACCHS) in Australia. The history of making of the
organization starts from 1974 and in 1997, the Federal Government funded NACCHO to
increase skill and capacity of indigenous people in delivering culturally appropriate and safe
care. We aim to deliver holistic care to indigenous groups by providing all support to ACCHS
services in Australia. By monitoring the activities of 143 ACCHS in urban and remote areas of
Australia, we aim to provide wide range of services to increase access to health services for
indigenous group. Our focus is on implementing both multi-functional services as well as small
services. Our multi-specialty services rely on expertise of medical practitioners and the load of
primary care services is taken up by Aboriginal health workers and nurse (NACCHO, 2018).
We are the leading organization working for the cause of Aboriginal people and their
health in Australia. We are in regular communication and interaction with the Australian
Government on implementation of advocacy policy for aboriginal health and promoting quality
of life of indigenous people. Our key strategic direction has been to create a positive and
empowering environment of cultural safety in health services to ensure that responsive and
culturally appropriate care is delivered. We have been working with the goal of establishing
appropriate NACCHO Cultural Safety Training Standards. To further improve in our endeavour
to improve health status of indigenous Australians, our future objective is to establish an
assessment process for achieving the NACCHO standards and creates accessible training activity

CULTURAL SAFETY
database for health workers. We are focusing on expanding the reach of our local ACCHSs so
that it penetrates to remote areas and provision of health services is broadened for all indigenous
population
Position statement:
The following is our position statement and reflection of values:
 Create an environment of cultural safety to reduce insecurities and experience of
discrimination for indigenous Australians
 Advocate for health promotion and addressing inequity in relation to health care service
provisions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
 Liaison with Australian government and other agencies to facilitate development of
health and well-being policy for indigenous group
 Embrace culturally appropriate and culturally safe services
 Establish support mechanism for delivery of culturally responsive care
 Encourage capacity of Aboriginal people working in ACCHS to inform health policy
development
 Collaborate with key stakeholders to promote health of the indigenous group
 Embrace philosophy of holistic care and community control principles
 Implement needs based approaches to enhance health outcome of clients
 Foster collaborative partnership with agencies that practice holistic care and respect
Aboriginal values and culture
Part 2: Rationale underpinning position statement:

CULTURAL SAFETY
Significant of having a position statement on providing culturally safe health environment:
The position statement of NACCHO focuses on creating appropriate cultural safety
environment for Aboriginal people in Australia. All the values and actions are reflective of ways
to achieve the strategic goal of cultural safety. It emphasizes on addressing health inequity and
improving provision of services both in urban and rural areas. In health care service, the concept
of cultural safety is a process implemented in response to poor health status and evidence of
disparities and inequalities in health outcome for a vulnerable population group. Cultural safety
principles aims to address inequity in distribution of service and increasing provisions to deliver
service as per cultural expectations and values of the target group (). NACCHO emphasize on
promoting cultural safety across all ACCHS. This position statement has been prioritized
because of widespread report of disparities in health outcome between indigenous and non-
indigenous group. Durey and Thompson (2012) gives the evidence that indigenous people have
worse health outcome than rest of the population and exposure to poverty and disadvantage
increases morbidity and mortality rate and low life expectancy for the group.
The position statement mentions about advocating for health promotion and liasing with
Australian government to develop appropriate policy for culturally appropriate care. The
rationale for this position statement is the evidence of inequitable health care access for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders because of cultural barriers in care. Li (2017) argues that
health equity demands fairness in providing health care services to diverse population group.
However, cultural differences and lack of cultural training for health care professionals in
Australia result in high rate of infant death, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and diagnosis of
infectious disease like HIV/AIDS. Hence, collaboration with Australian government is crucial in
showing gaps in current service provision and getting appropriate support to extend wider