Healthy Start rolls out Nationwide

Families from low income households will benefit from a new scheme today, giving free milk and fresh fruit and vegetables to children and mums-to-be.

Healthy Start is replacing the Welfare Food Scheme, first brought in during the Second World War to help combat food shortages. Like the Welfare Food Scheme, Healthy Start will provide people who qualify with vouchers to buy milk and infant formula. However, the new scheme will provide greater flexibility, also allowing parents to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Free vitamin supplements will remain an important part of the new scheme.

The new vouchers will be worth £2.80 each. Qualifying pregnant women and children over one and under four will get one voucher every week, and children under one year old will get two vouchers a week. Vouchers can be spent with participating retailers - including small businesses and milkmen as well as larger supermarkets and chemists.

Around 20,000 individual retailers across the UK have already signed up to participate in Healthy Start, more than had signed up to the Welfare Food Scheme. Retailers include food co-operatives, box schemes, markets, greengrocers and milk roundsmen as well as supermarkets and chemists.

Public Health Minister Caroline Flint said:

"Poor diet can have a real impact on people's health. We want people to have the best possible opportunity to eat healthily. But for families in low income households, this is sometimes easier said than done. This new scheme will not only provide greater choice of healthy food, but will also mean that children can get milk and fresh fruit and vegetables from the cradle up, helping to give them the best possible start in life."

Over half a million low income households currently benefit from the Welfare Food Scheme. Eligible families will automatically move over to Healthy Start, but for the first time the scheme will also be open to all pregnant women under the age of 18 ? a group known to be nutritionally vulnerable and at risk of having babies with a low birth weight. Pregnant women and children under four in families receiving certain benefits will also be eligible to receive the vouchers.

Health professionals working with pregnant women and families with young children will have an important role in the scheme, providing them with advice and information on healthy eating and breastfeeding and supporting their applications for Healthy Start.

Pregnant women and families on the new scheme will also be able to use the Healthy Start website to check if they qualify, download an application form, and find local shops participating in the scheme. The website also offers recipe ideas, tips for eating healthily during pregnancy and even recipe suggestions for weaning.

For more information visit www.healthystart.nhs.uk

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