East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire families are missing out on thousands of pounds of financial support to help them buy healthy food.

The NHS Humber Health Partnership, made up of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH) & Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLAG), are urging parents to not miss out on 'Healthy Start' vouchers.

Launched in 2006, the scheme was brought in to help people buy fruit and vegetables, milk and claim free vitamins from 10 weeks into pregnancy or until their child is four years old. In Hull alone, between £250,000 and £350,000 is going unclaimed every year as people do not realise their entitlement to the support.

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Healthy Start vouchers are eligible to people on Universal Credit when they are ten weeks or more pregnant, to while their child is under four. If you're pregnant and under 18, you can claim even if you do not receive any benefits.

Joanna Melia, public health specialist midwife at NHS Humber Health Partnership, said: "Eating and drinking healthily during pregnancy means you’re giving your baby a great start to life while looking after your own health.

"These vouchers are a great way of paying for healthy fruit, vegetables, pulses and milk and I’d encourage everyone entitled to the benefit to claim it."

Data from September 2021 to March 2022 showed only around six in ten eligible nationally were on the Healthy Start scheme. All Humberside local authority areas had better uptake than the national average in March 2022, but still 20-30 per cent of eligible people were missing out.

Hull and North East Lincolnshire had the joint highest uptake of those eligible, 83 per cent. East Riding had 76 per cent. North Lincolnshire had 70 per cent uptake.

How Healthy Start vouchers work

Those who successfully sign up to the scheme get a Healthy Start card, preloaded with money. This can be used in shops and entitlement is renewed every four weeks.

The card can enable purchase of:

  • plain cow’s milk
  • fresh, frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables
  • fresh, dried and tinned pulses
  • infant formula milk based on cow’s milk

The card can also be used to collect Healthy Start vitamins, which support a mother during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and vitamin drops for babies to four-year-olds.

How much a family is entitled to depends on the age of their child, or pregnancy. Healthy Start pays out an average of £4.25 a week to those pregnant from their tenth week of pregnancy, and it is the same figure for any child aged one to four. A higher rate of £8.50 a week average is paid for children from birth to their first birthday.

The card cannot be used for online shopping. But it can be used in any store that accepts Mastercard and sells healthy food and milk.

Visit the NHS Healthy Start website for more information or to apply. The push for eligible people to sign up to Healthy Start comes after earlier this month a 'Milk Trail' was launched in Hull, to highlight breastfeeding friendly places in the city. The trail was jointly the work of Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust and Hull City Council.

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