The Healthy Start Scheme⁴ is a means- tested scheme which aims to improve the nutritional status of pregnant women and young children in low-income families by providing food vouchers and free vitamins.

However, the scheme may not be operating at optimal levels. Depending on where your pharmacy is in the UK, your involvement with the Healthy Start scheme will vary.

A 2015 BMJ paper⁵ reported on the views of people involved in the scheme in London and in Yorkshire and the Humber. It found concerns about the low uptake of Healthy Start vitamin supplements, and the potential effect on health outcomes. Targeted provision of free vitamin supplements for low-income childbearing women and young children was “not fulfilling its potential to address vitamin deficiencies”.

Even so, there was “wide professional and voluntary sector support for provision of free vitamin supplements for all pregnant and new mothers, and children up to their fifth birthday that could address current concerns about vitamin D deficiency.”

A year later, another BMJ study,⁶ this time looking at uptake in Scotland, reported a rise of 13.3 per cent in voucher receipt in Lothian against an 8.4 per cent decline for the rest of Scotland. Factors affecting uptake included staff, family and location, along with input from welfare rights advisers.

The researchers said that the work “demonstrated that low-income pregnant women need support to apply for entitlements during pregnancy. Healthy Start is one of the simplest parts of the welfare system, but sign up was poorly understood and completed. Even when midwives had mastered their part of the sign- up process, women frequently needed more support to complete the application.”