Healthy Start

Healthy Start is a government funded, national scheme that provides vouchers every week to spend on milk, plain fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, and infant formula milk. It also provides vouchers for free vitamins. The vouchers can be worth over £900 per child if they are claimed for the entire qualifying period.
The qualifying criteria for Healthy Start are as follows:
A person must be at least 10 weeks pregnant or have a child under four years old and they or their family get:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Child Tax Credit with a family income of £16,190 or less per year
• Pension Credit; or
• Universal Credit with no earned income or total earned income of £408 or less per month for the family. (To find this refer to your Universal Credit award notice in the section “your take home pay for this month”.)

A person also qualifies if they are under 18 and pregnant, even if they don’t get any of the above benefits.
To access the scheme individuals need to fill out a physical form and send it to the following address:

Healthy Start Issuing Unit
FREEPOST RRTR-STAE-JKCR
PO Box 1067
Warrington
WA55 1EG

Hard copies of the form can be printed from an online PDF or hard copies can be ordered free of charge for organisations to distribute. You can download and print a form from the Healthy Start website

1. To order hard copies of the forms online:
   Open the web page www.orderline.dh.gov.uk (you can also do this using any of the ‘order’ buttons on this page)
2. Click on the registration page link and create an account if you do not already have an Orderline account. To register, you will need an email address and the postal address where the copies are to be sent to. You will be sent a confirmation email, and within 24 hours a password will be sent to you via email.
3. Log in by entering your customer number and password in the box at the top right-hand corner of the page.
4. Using the ‘Publication search’ box on the right-hand side of the page, enter ‘healthy start’ (with search option ‘Advanced’) in the ‘Keyword’ box and click ‘Go’.
5. All of the resources available in hard copy will be listed. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete your order.

To order hard copies by telephone:
Call 0300 123 1002, quoting the title and reference number (eg HS01/HS02) of the item you require.

In Cornwall, vitamins are available at the following pharmacies: