Aboriginal people in NSW do not enjoy the same health outcomes or access to healthcare as the non-Aboriginal population, despite some improvements. This can be observed across a wide range of morbidity, mortality, service usage and patient experience indicators. Many of these discrepancies can be attributed to the inequities experienced by Aboriginal people and communities in key determinants of health, and there is a clear relationship between socio-economic inequalities and the health gap due to the impacts of intergenerational trauma. 

This Aboriginal Health Plan makes a commitment to recognising, respecting and elevating the cultural determinants of health and wellbeing and their restorative impact in the lives of Aboriginal people. Ensuring culture remains at the centre of actions to implement this Plan is vital to its success.

The purpose of this plan is to drive change by:

• guiding how health systems are planned, delivered, and monitored
• elevating the focus on Aboriginal expertise to drive shared decision-making and innovative collaborations
• influencing the redesign of health services to achieve health equity, and
• providing direction for the elimination of racism in all aspects of health care.

The vision of this plan is ‘Sharing power in system reform to achieve the highest levels of health and wellbeing for Aboriginal people’. By sharing decision-making power with Aboriginal people we can challenge the status quo, do things differently and achieve different outcomes.