DCAF- Pre-pregnancy screening tool development and implementation

Tender description

The Scottish Government has a requirement to place a contract with an external service provider for the provision of services in the form of consultation and practical advice to inform the ongoing development of a Preconception Health and Care Framework and Action Plan in Scotland. Lot 1: The Scottish Government has a requirement to place a contract with an external service provider for the provision of services in the form of consultation and practical advice. This will include providing specific advice and examples, using prior knowledge and experience of similar work with relevant populations, to shape the progress of implementing a pre-pregnancy screening tool and approach to enhance preconception and inter-conception care in Scotland. This knowledge and experience will be used to tailor education packages and methods to embed the tool and approach into routine care and to increase a system wide understanding of the importance of designing accessible care aligned to women’s pregnancy choices, to improve maternal and child health outcomes. A knowledge of the NHS in Scotland and evidence of ready access to an appropriate stakeholder network will be required to test and build this work, at pace, into existing care pathways to support primary care teams and other health professionals, to develop competencies in asking these questions and redesigning services. The intention is to continue to build and embed the work that has already been undertaken in the past 12 months with key stakeholders, including NHS Education for Scotland, and to use key findings from the initial pilot to shape priorities. The scope of this requirement covers the following: - Must have prior knowledge of contraceptive care and pathways, General practice, Women’s Health, Risk and protective factors in pregnancy and child health and development, evidence of delivering education and training to evoke behaviour change in individuals and across varied workforces, developing communication plans and understanding health and community systems. - Sharing of tools, resources, and contributing towards policy and practice development, through Scottish Government policy teams and partners, and to wider, associated endeavours. - Using evidence to develop a contextually relevant approach to support women preparing for pregnancy, including planning for not getting pregnant. The provider will: - Work with national bodies, including Scottish Government and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to test and refine content for national level education and training for multi-disciplinary partners. - Bring a high level understanding of health and care pathways that should be prioritised for this work, and show clear evidence of prior working with partners to integrate new approaches on pre-pregnancy preparation into existing pathways. - Engage with relevant networks to extract learning and identify opportunities for testing/embedding work to support preconception/inter-conception. - Show evidence of effectively carrying out similar activities, at scale and across different geographies, demographics and workforce groupings. - Use relevant existing connections to inform scope and development of contextually and clinically relevant content, that is aligned to national policy, and can be integrated into existing education and training offers across different workforce disciplines. - Develop workplans to deliver on the recommendations from the pilot work in Scotland on the adapted One Key Question alongside their own experience, to set out a scale and spread approach, using quality improvement, research and appropriate evaluation methods to test and learn what works in Scotland. - Be a critical friend as the wider programme of work across preconception grows and develops, offering insights on prior learning on how to embed use of pre-pregnancy screening tools and to identify potential solutions to barriers for implementation and adaptation.. Please note your interest in this Prior Information Notice by 24 June 2025 at 12 Noon.