Harmony Week 2025 — Supporting your practice to deliver culturally responsive care
Harmony Week 2025, held from Monday 17 to Sunday 23 March, highlights Australia’s rich cultural diversity and fosters inclusivity, respect, and belonging. At Brisbane South PHN, we see and hear firsthand the meaningful benefits for patients when culturally responsive healthcare approaches are embedded in practice.
The Brisbane South PHN region is home to over 1.2 million people from various cultural backgrounds, with 1 in 3 residents born overseas and 1 in 5 coming from a non-English speaking country. We also have Queensland’s highest refugee resettlement rates, the largest urban First Nations population, and Australia’s largest Pasifika and Māori community.
Given this diverse regional profile, Brisbane South PHN provides dedicated support to the local primary health care sector through our Multicultural Health team. Our team works closely with primary care providers, offering resources and free training, referral pathways to health services, and more.
For more information on how we support primary health care providers, visit our Multicultural Health page or email multicultural@bsphn.org.au.
Meet Dr Margaret Kay, our GP Clinical Lead for multicultural health
Dr Margaret Kay, a local GP and our Multicultural Health Clinical Lead, has been advocating for culturally responsive care for over 30 years. She has extensive experience in working with patients from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, and with those from refugee backgrounds in particular.
Dr Kay can support practices in providing culturally responsive care and becoming ‘refugee health ready’. To request free in-clinic training with Dr Kay, contact multicultural@bsphn.org.au.
Working with interpreters in primary health care
Working with interpreters is an important skill for all primary care providers.
Working with a qualified interpreter is essential to ensure all patients can access health care regardless of their English language skills. Engaging an interpreter helps you to communicate effectively with your non-English speaking patients, can protect you from professional risk and is consistent with best practice ethical and professional standards.
Find detailed information about registering, accessing and working with interpreters on our website.
Collecting cultural data enables quality patient care
A culturally responsive medical practice collects demographic information from their patients. This information enables better planning for patient care, can improve safety for patients, and enables services to be appropriately tailored.
The 5 indicators that are recommended for collection include, a patient’s:
country of birth
language used at home
ethnicity
need for an interpreter
year of arrival in Australia
Some medical software, including Best Practice and Medical Director, can assist practices to record this cultural information. Learn how simple it is to record this data.
What if my patients feel uncomfortable sharing their cultural details?
For many reasons, sometimes patients may not want to share this information. To help your patients understand the purpose of the questions about cultural background, we have a poster and a factsheet that might help:
This poster can be displayed in your waiting room or consultation rooms to help people understand why asking about cultural background in health settings is important. Posters come in 2 sizes.
This factsheet can support staff working in general practices to gather the cultural background information.
Hard copies of the poster and factsheet are available on request via multiculturalhealth@bsphn.org.au, or you can download them from our website.
More information for primary care professionals
Find local resources listed on our Multicultural Health pages: www.bsphn.org.au/community-health/commissioning/multicultural-health
Refer to the new PHN Multicultural Health Framework for best practice guidance
Read our article: Supporting accessible primary health care for refugees