Food vouchers for low income families

Healthy Start, which replaces the Welfare Food Scheme, provides parents with weekly vouchers worth up to £5.60 a week for children up to one year old and £2.80 per week for children up to five. These can be exchanged for milk, fruit or vegetables from shops. Pregnant women under the age of 18 are also eligible, regardless of income.

Milk is also provided to any child up to the age of five attending LEA and Ofsted-registered daycare for more than two hours a day. It had been proposed that nurseries must choose between offering children a third of a pint of milk or a piece of fruit. However, to date this proposal has not been implemented.

The Department of Health confirmed that existing Welfare Food arrangements to pay childcare providers for supplying milk will continue for the foreseeable future. Providers who participate will be informed if and when any changes are made.

Details of the scheme and what it means for healthcare professionals, together with downloadable resources, can be found at www.healthystart.nhs.uk.

Parents in Devon and Cornwall were the first to pilot the scheme in November 2005, prior to the national roll-out on 27 November.