Update of the Clinical Practice Pregnancy Care Guidelines and Development of Clinical Practice Postnatal Care Guidelines

The Department of Health and Aged Care is seeking Tenders to:

(a) update the Pregnancy Care Guidelines to reflect current evidence in maternity care, transform the guidelines into Living Guidelines and support the Living Guidelines for the next 5 years (Project 1).

(b) Develop new living clinical practice guidelines for the provision of postnatal care and support the Living Guidelines for the next 5 years (Project 2).

The Department is seeking applications from organisations with expertise in pregnancy care and perinatal health, experience developing National Health and Medical Research Council approved recommendations (preferably living guidelines), and an ability to work with a diverse range of stakeholders through the guideline development process.

The scope of work includes all practices set out in the National Health and Medical Research Council Guidelines for Guidelines Handbookand must meet the Procedures and requirements for meeting the 2011 NHMRC standard for clinical practice guidelines(noting the guidelines must be developed to the 2016 NHMRC standards). Guideline recommendations are to be approved by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Applicants can provide a response to the requirements of either project as an individual project or provide a response that satisfies the requirements of both projects.

Project 1 – Pregnancy Care Guidelines

The Clinical Practice Guidelines: Pregnancy Care (the Pregnancy Care Guidelines) help ensure that women in Australia are provided with consistent, high-quality, evidence-based maternity care. The Pregnancy Care Guidelines are intended for all health professionals who contribute to pregnancy care including midwives, obstetricians, general practitioners, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers and allied health professionals. The Pregnancy Care Guidelines require regular updates to ensure they reflect current evidence and remain up to date.

This Project will review the Pregnancy Care Guidelines to identify topics that require updating and any new topics to be included. All recommendations that have expired or are due to expire within the next 12 months need to be updated. The project will also update the Health Professional Summary Sheets that accompany the guidelines and identify and develop new summary sheets as required.

Project 2 – Postnatal Care Guidelines

The Woman Centred Care – strategic directions for Australian maternity services highlighted the development of national evidence guidelines as a key enabler for improving postnatal care and consistency of care across health sectors. The early postnatal period is a time of emotional change for most women, with one in three women identifying a traumatic birthing event (physical and/or psychological). Australia does not have any national evidence-based guidelines for postnatal care.

This project involves the development and implementation of living postnatal guidelines, including best clinical and psychological practice to address birth trauma. The Living Guidelines need to link the clinical guidelines to practical information for workers to use at point of care.

Both projects will need to be supported as Living Guidelines until 2028.