London gets personal trainers on NHS

Personal trainers are to be employed by the NHS in deprived parts of London, it was announced today.

Areas with the poorest health are to pilot a series of new measures including screening for sexual diseases, improved services to help smokers quit and trainers offering lifestyle advice.

Health Secretary John Reid today took a Tube from Westminster to Canning Town to illustrate health inequality in the capital. The eight stops represented a drop of nearly eight years in average male life expectancy in the two areas.

Men in affluent Westminster have a life expectancy of 76.2 years compared with 69 in the east London district. Boroughs that will be targeted first under measures outlined in a White Paper this week are Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Barking and Dagenham, City and Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark.

Dr Reid said the Government would be investing £1 billion over the next three years in public health, in areas such as diet, exercise and sexual health. He added some areas had the same mortality rates as the national average in the Fifties.