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Government reforms offering hundreds of thousands of parents vouchers for free fruit and vegetables have been welcomed by the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health. But it says that more money would have to be put in to support it to have a significant impact on infant nutrition and play a useful role in tackling health inequalities.

The process of replacing the Welfare Food Scheme with the new Healthy Start scheme was ‘very protracted’ said the society. It added: ‘If it takes five years to extend a long-established milk token scheme to include fruit and vegetables then it is hard to see how the government expects to live up to its own expectations of bringing about major changes in the nation’s eating habits in the short to medium term.’

• www.doh.gov.uk/healthystart

Health minister Rosie Winterton and Patient Experience Champion for Emergency Care Jonathan Ashbridge have launched the Emergency Multilingual Phrasebook for A&E staff across England. The phrasebook is translated into 36 languages and covers over 60 of the most common medical questions and terms to help first contact staff communicate with patients who do not speak English, helping them make an initial assessment while an interpreter is contacted.

• www.dh.gov.uk

A week-long landmark equal pay case set to be heard in Newcastle in May could lead to dramatic pay rises for female hospital staff. The Unison-backed claims involve more than 1,500 women — around 1,200 of whom are from North Cumbria Acute Hospitals trust. The Cumbrian workers are employed at West Cumberland Hospital and Cumberland Infirmary, the country’s first private finance initiative hospital.