Healthy Start NHS food voucher scheme has ‘pitifully’ low take-up

Figures show usage has barely shifted in a year, despite rising food poverty in UK

The government has missed its target to increase the take-up of NHS healthy food vouchers aimed at vulnerable parents of young children, it has emerged, despite soaring grocery prices and rising food poverty.

The latest figures show that take-up of the ill-starred Healthy Start scheme, designed to help pregnant women and parents of under-fours in low-income families pay for fruit, vegetables, milk, and baby milk powder, has barely shifted in a year.