Improving Maternal and Infant Nutrition: A Framework for Action

• Introduce new routinely collected data, new survey questions or new surveyswhere a need has been identified.6.4 Particular gaps have been identified for Scotland relating to data on dietaryintake during pregnancy and post pregnancy; maternal vitamin D, folate and ironstatus; maternal and infant obesity and weight gain, and infant nutrition during andpost weaning.Implementation6.5 A national Implementation Group will be established to drive and co-ordinateimplementation of the Framework and action plan. This Group will comprise ofrepresentatives from the lead organisations identified in the action plan and otherkey stakeholders as appropriate.6.6 Strategic and operational leadership and organisational ownership are criticalto the success of implementation of this Framework therefore each NHS Board andpartner organisation should identify an Executive Director and appropriate seniormember of staff who will have lead responsibility for implementation anddevelopment of a local delivery and results plan.Results Chain6.7 The action plan has identified several key areas of activity across a range ofinterventions, policy and practice areas. These activities seek to move from thecurrent situation, as set out in chapter 4, to the outcomes the Framework aims toachieve to improve maternal and infant nutrition. High level milestones andtimescales have been identified to enable monitoring of progress on implementationof the activities and, for many of these, there will be a need for the activity tocontinue beyond the timescale identified.6.8 The Framework recognises each activity requires a number of key partners totake responsibility for contributing to these activities and not one agency is able todeliver these activities on their own. To enable partners to understand their progresstowards achieving change, it is suggested each partner develops a results planwhich sets out how their organisation intends to respond to the activities identified inthe action plan. Specifically:• What activities they will undertake;• Who they expect to engage with when undertaking these activities and whatresponse is expected;• What changes they expect to see as a result of these activities.Indicators6.9 To enable us to recognise progress towards the changes we are expecting tosee, potential indicators for each outcome have been identified and are presented inAppendix 6. Many of the indicators proposed are proxy indicators; they will notmeasure an outcome precisely. Furthermore, many of the indicators will need to bedeveloped over time and therefore will need to be refined as work progresses. The