Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many external suppliers his Department is working with on the development of a digital card scheme to replace paper Healthy Start Vouchers.

The NHS Business Services Authority are leading work to digitise the Healthy Start scheme, on behalf of the Department, to make it easier for families to apply for and use Healthy Start.

The NHS Business Services Authority has a contract with Xerox to provide pre-paid cards for the new Healthy Start service, with certain elements provided by Allpay. The new card is branded with the National Health Service logo.