healthy start scheme

The Institute of Health Visiting joins over 80 signatories to sign a letter, coordinated by The Food Foundation, calling for the Government to ensure that pregnant women/ people and those with babies and toddlers who are living in poverty receive the basic support they need for children to grow up healthily. The letter asks for the Government’s Child Poverty Taskforce for urgent improvements to the Healthy Start scheme to ensure children are receiving the nutrition they need at this critical stage of development.

Currently, households with children are persistently at higher risk of food insecurity than households without. In June 2024, The Food Foundation found that food insecurity was experienced by 18.0% of households with children, compared to 11.7% of households without children. This shows how important it is that the government’s Healthy Start scheme, which is supposed to provide a critical nutritional safety net for pregnant people and families with children under 4 who are living in poverty, reaches these families.

The Healthy Start scheme has huge potential to help families in England at risk of food insecurity to access the basic nutrition they need through weekly payments for fruit, veg, milk, formula and multivitamin supplements. However, it is currently failing to reach those in need due to:

Restrictive eligibility criteria and only being available to those with a household income of £408 per month or less, excluding benefits.
Low value of £4.25 a week. The payment hasn’t increased since 2021 and so has failed to keep up with inflation. For comparison, the Best Start Foods scheme, which is the Healthy Start equivalent in Scotland, has a value of £5.30 a week.
Low uptake, with about a third of eligible families currently not signed up to the scheme due to lack of awareness and administrative hurdles.
Families currently only being eligible until their child turns 4, meaning there is a gap before children start school and have access to Free School Meals.

High levels of food insecurity among households with children are particularly concerning given how important good nutrition is in pregnancy and for young children’s growth and development. Food insecurity in pregnancy has been linked to antenatal depression, gestational diabetes, and excessive or insufficient weight gain in mothers. For babies, good nutrition is essential for healthy growth, strong immunity and preventing diet related illnesses later in life.

The letter, addressed to Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson MP, Secretary of State for Education, Chair of the Child Poverty Taskforce, Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Chair of the Child Poverty Taskforce and Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, calls for improvements to the Healthy Start scheme to be made as part of the upcoming Child Poverty Strategy.

Signatories of the letter are calling on the government to:

Expand eligibility to include all families on Universal Credit, and extend the age-eligibility to include children under five years old
Increase the value of the Healthy Start allowance in line with inflation
Introduce auto-enrolment, with an “opt-out” rather than the current “opt-in” system to remove barriers faced by families in applying

Signatories of the letter include NGOs, local government, medical bodies and anti-poverty campaigners, including chef Tom Kerridge, representatives from Barnardo’s, the Institute of Health Visiting, Royal College of Midwives, Sustain and The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

Shona Goudie, Policy and Advocacy Manager, The Food Foundation, said:

“By the time children start school, one in five are already an unhealthy weight, with rates twice as high among the most deprived communities compared to the most privileged. Not only that, but a third of five-year-olds have tooth decay. These shocking figures highlight a glaring truth: more needs to be done to ensure our children are getting a nutritious start in life. Government should be doing everything it can to prevent our children getting sick in the first place. The Healthy Start scheme has enormous potential to help the most deprived children access healthy food from their earliest years but is currently falling short. We urgently call on Government to recognise the incredibly beneficial impact this scheme could have if it was improved. This would help children access much-needed healthy food at one of the most critical times in their lives for growth and development.”

Vicky Gilroy, Director of Innovation and Research, Institute of Health Visiting, said:

“Healthy Start provides an essential nutritional safety-net for babies, children and families living in poverty. The Institute of Health Visiting fully supports the call to expand and extend the Healthy Start scheme, including auto-enrolment, expanded eligibility criteria, and increased value. This will support more families to access healthy foods, enabling babies, children and families in poverty to eat well.”

In the spirit of collaboration, we are supporting and sharing Marcus Rashford MBE’s call to signpost as many people as possible to the Government’s Healthy Start Scheme.

In a letter received today by the iHV, Marcus writes:

“Daily, you see first-hand the impact hunger and poor diets have on, not only physical, but mental health and where that can lead. You are for many, for many communities like mine, a lifeline. An avenue to really be heard and to be seen.

“Healthcare professionals are in a position to signpost eligible parents to the Healthy Start scheme, and I would very much appreciate it if you would consider collaborating with us on communicating and educating on the scheme during consultations.”

In the letter, Marcus details how members of the Child Food Poverty Taskforce have leveraged their channels and platforms since November 2020 to communicate and educate on the Healthy Start scheme – with the hope that the majority of those most in need would be reached. Whilst 57,000 more parents have benefitted from the scheme as a result, Marcus shares his concern that the reach is plateauing.

He states that more than 40% of those eligible are still not registered for the scheme, and he is confident that the majority of these parents can be found in communities just like the one he grew up in – where there is no internet, no high street, no word of mouth.

And so he is calling for healthcare professionals, such as health visitors who reach into these communities, to help spread the word by sharing information and educating families during your contacts.

He writes:

“A true difference can only be made via a grassroots approach so we have developed, with help from the NHS, a simple to use calculator to determine eligibility which we would love for you to utilise: https://endchildfoodpoverty.org/healthy-start.”