Lewisham Public Health in the London Borough of Lewisham, has selected TASTART to provide the technology behind its FreeDcard vitamin D distribution scheme. Pregnant or nursing mothers who qualify for free vitamins register for FreeDcard and are given a card similar to the Transport for London Oyster card. On subsequent visits to the health centre or community pharmacy the card is scanned and the appropriate pre or post birth vitamins are dispensed to the mother and/or dependent children. Vitamins dispensed are recorded in the system’s visit record, along with any additional advice.  The benefits of using TASTART are:

• Easier for vitamin recipients – keeps a record of previous distribution and tracks dependent children as well
• Data collected at source – no transcription effort or errors
• Visibility of uptake – on demand reporting and analysis
• Assistance with supply chain issues – better understanding of stock levels and facilitating ordering of vitamin packs

Other case studies

How two London Boroughs approached the introduction of Healthy Start vitamin distribution schemes. These case studies refer to the earlier NICE guideline PH11, which PH65 replaced in Nov 2014:

• Healthy Start vitamin distribution in Tower Hamlets
• Healthy Start women’s vitamin tablets in Newham

More resources

A good summary “Maternal Vitamin D supplementation via the Healthy Start programme”, including useful cross references, can be found in this report from the Lancet.

Interested?

If you want to know more about TASTART – call 0800 756 1087 or complete our contact form.