Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost per minute of accessing the Healthy Start helpline is; and what was the average length of call to the Healthy Start helpline in the month preceding the digitisation deadline of the scheme.

The NHS Business Services Authority’s Healthy Start telephone helpline is charged at a local rate. Calls are free for most people as they are included in the free minutes of a call plan. The average call handling time for February 2022 was 8 minutes 56 seconds.

General queries about Healthy Start can also be made via email and through the NHS Business Services Authority’s Healthy Start Facebook and Twitter social media channels at no charge.