A good way of doing business! Working together to achieve improved outcomes for Aboriginal people in NSW cancer services

Improving access to cancer services for Aboriginal people in the Greater Southern Area Health Services of NSW (GSAHS) is a central focus of the Aboriginal Health and Cancer Service's Working Together project. This twelve-month project, funded by the Cancer Institute NSW, begins to redress the current failure of local rural and regional health services to provide and develop accessible, culturally appropriate and secure health services for Aboriginal people with cancer. Central to the project are the development of collaborative relationships and partnerships between Aboriginal health workers and services and non-Aboriginal health professionals and cancer service networks that are internal and external to the Area Health Service. This article identifies the processes and strategies used to establish these collaborative relationships and begins with a brief description of the geographical and cultural context of the GSAHS region. In this paper, the term Aboriginal will be predominantly used as Aboriginal people are the traditional custodians of the land within GSAHS. We also acknowledge that there are a small number of Torres Strait Islander people living in the region.