Cultural Safety

Policy

Q22

All patients and their whānau have a right to feel physically, culturally, and emotionally safe at our practice.

We respect our patients' cultural beliefs, values, and practices, and understand that culturally safe practice empowers patients to be involved in decision making and contributes to equitable health outcomes.

We recognise that the inherent power imbalance between practitioners and patients and structures in the health system have contributed to poorer health outcomes for Māori and other groups. We encourage our team to understand how underlying attitudes and biases impact all interactions and contribute to inequities.

To build a culturally safe environment, we:

• train our team to understand the concepts of cultural competency and cultural safety
• support our team to reflect on how their own underlying attitudes or biases shape interactions with other people
• encourage the use of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori in our facility
• engage with patients, whānau, and our community to understand their beliefs, values, and norms
• ensure diagnoses and treatments fit with each person's cultural contexts, while following the best clinical pathway
• include whānau in health care as appropriate.

See also Bias and Achieving Equity.

Clinical governance

Any feedback indicating that our healthcare facility isn't culturally safe is discussed by our clinical governance team, who identify the steps needed to investigate and address this.

See also Clinical Governance.

Determining cultural safety

Cultural safety is determined by people's experience and whether they feel comfortable, respected, and fully engaged at our facility.

Q26

To gain an understanding of how culturally safe people feel at our facility, we assess feedback from sources such as:

• survey results
• complaints
• informal feedback
• face-to-face meetings with patients and whānau
• patient advisory group.

See also Patient Experience.