Healthy Start value increase set to put healthier food on children’s plates

From 6 April 2026, the government’s Healthy Start scheme will offer more value to eligible families. The Healthy Start scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is a vital nutritional safety net that helps to reduce the financial burden on the lowest income families during pregnancy and early years - a critical window of opportunity for supporting lifelong health and achieving value for public investment.

The scheme provides weekly payments to spend on nutritious food, such as fruit and vegetables, milk and infant formula, as well as free multivitamins. Benefits of the scheme include increasing purchase of fruit and vegetables, improved dietary choices, help with household finances, and benefits to child development and family wellbeing.

As of April 2026, the value of the Healthy Start weekly payments will increase from £4.25 per eligible individual or £8.50 for infants under one, to £4.65 per eligible individual and £9.30 for infants under one.

This is the first increase in payment since April 2021 and is therefore very welcome. However, the value of payments falls short of the value offered in Scotland under the equivalent scheme of Best Start (payments are £10.80 for under ones and £5.40 for pregnant women and one–four-year-olds). Additionally, the new uplift doesn’t keep up with high levels of inflation and rising food prices, particularly regarding affordability of first infant formula milk, which for non-breastfed babies, is the only alternative safe nutrition for babies under 6 months old.

While the Healthy Start scheme offers important nutritional benefits to young families, the scheme is not currently reaching its full potential. As well as concerns about the value keeping up with food prices, many eligible families are not receiving their entitlement, with low awareness of the scheme meaning many don’t realise they are eligible, as well as bureaucratic challenges. Narrow eligibility criteria means that many families living in poverty do not have access to the nutritional benefits the scheme provides.

Additionally, an issue with the data held by the NHS means that uptake figures for the scheme have not been released since 2023 - leaving local authorities and food partnerships unclear if their hard work to increase local uptake of the scheme has been impactful.

Sustain is working with The Food Foundation to campaign for improvements to the Healthy Start Scheme. 

Our key asks for government are:

• Expand the eligibility criteria to reach more families in need. Eligibility should include all families on Universal Credit (in line with the recent Free School Meal eligibility expansion); increase the age threshold of children to include children aged 4 to 5 (bridging the gap to Universal Infant Free School Meals); and extend eligibility to all families with no recourse to public funds who meet the standard criteria.
• Increase uptake to ensure no eligible family misses out: resolve data issues and start publishing uptake data; immediately write to all eligible families to ensure they are aware of the scheme; and introduce auto-enrolment, with an “opt-out” rather than “opt-in” system.
• Ensure weekly payments maintain their relative value: increase payments to reflect inflationary increases in food prices; review the value annually to ensure it is increased in line with inflationary changes; and explore how to facilitate retailers adding further value to the scheme.

Read our joint policy position for more information.