Feed join Healthy Start Working Group
Having made repeated calls in 2020 and 2022 for an uplift in Healthy Start to better meet the needs of families with infants, we were delighted to joing the Healthy Start Working Group in Dec 2022.
Established in 2021 by Sustain and The Food Foundation, the HSWG is for civil society and early years healthcare representatives working on the Healthy Start scheme in order to amplify messaging around the programme in the run-up to the scheme being digitised. The group now consists of ten members who collectively work to ensure Healthy Start is meeting its original intentions and is adequately serving those families who most need its support.
The Healthy Start working group’s shared policy recommendations are for Healthy Start to be improved and expanded so it functions as the nutrition safety net it is meant to be. The paper also describes the main challenges and our shared vision for what a successful scheme for England, Wales and Northern Ireland should look like. We provide a list of proposed recommendations we believe the Government should consider.
Our policy calls are divided into four categories:
Increasing the value of the payments
Expanding eligibility for the scheme
Improving access and uptake
Supporting the scheme to meet its nutrition objectives
Healthy Start is part of the UK Government’s benefits scheme targeted at families with children under the age of four and pregnant families on very low incomes, as well as all pregnant teenagers below 18 years of age. It provides a critical nutritional safety net for families who are nutritionally vulnerable and comprises of two parts: a cash allowance and multivitamin supplements. Eligible families get £4.25 per week per eligible individual (£8.50 for infants under 1) intended for spending on
fresh, frozen or tinned fruit and vegetables, pulses, cow's milk or first infant formula, as well as free multivitamins for both pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and infants and children under 4.
