NHS bodies are risking babies’ health by accepting money from milk formula companies in breach of World Health Organization rules, an investigation has found.

Nearly a third of local commissioners responsible for allocating NHS cash have breached guidelines such as by accepting payments or sponsorship over the last five years, the survey revealed.

The international code of practice is intended to protect breastfeeding and regulate the often aggressive marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Experts last night said that doctors in NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) areas which had flouted the rules may be at higher risk of inappropriately recommending branded milk formula.

Many will have attended training events sponsored by formula companies and awash with commercial literature, said Dr Laura de Rooy, a consultant neonatologist at St George's Hospital, London.

“All those training days are not necessarily providing those healthcare professionals with unbiased information,” she said.

"The other really important point is that if there is advertising of those brands to those healthcare professionals, paediatricians, they are more likely to prescribe those brands to you.

"And so even the advertising that is directed at a scientific audience, a paediatrician audience, can be misleading."

Conducted by Channel 4’s Dispatches, the investigation revealed that 59 of England’s 195 CCGs had recorded a breach of the code of practice since 2014.