Ms. Stephanie Looi1, Rozario Anna1
1NSW Ambulance, NSW, Australia
Biography:
To be provided if approved by NSWA.
Abstract:
All NSW government organisations and institutions, are partners to the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. To guide the fulfilment of our commitment, NSW Ambulance has developed an Aboriginal Health Action Plan, in order to define a roadmap for NSWA to realise a mobile health system where cultural differences and strengths are recognised and responded to in the governance, management and delivery of high-quality clinical care, rescue and retrieval services.
The Plan was codesigned with a First Nation owned and led advisory group. This was to ensure that all design activities were undertaken in a culturally safe and sensitive way, and importantly
the voice of First Nation peoples were integral in assessment, policy and agreement making during the co-design project.
The development of the Plan and the NSW Ambulance Aboriginal Advisory Committee Package involved extensive engagement and consultation, including surveys, interviews, and workshops with both Aboriginal and non-Indigenous NSWA staff, and external First Nation stakeholders. The feedback received was overwhelmingly positive, with support from staff representing approximately 15 percent of NSWA’s Aboriginal workforce.
The work resulted in a culturally sensitive framework for engaging with and tailoring services to the specific healthcare needs of Aboriginal peoples and Aboriginal communities and provides practical guidance on realistic and implementable activities.