OVERWEIGHT people in Worcestershire are to be offered free personal trainers in a bid to help them fight the flab.

The move is part of a multi-million pound scheme to improve the health of people in the county.

Worcestershire Primary Care Trust has been given £2.4m of Government funding to launch the offensive.

Thirty one full-time health trainers will be brought in across three pilot areas in Worcester in April at a cost of £580,000 - Warndon, Gorse Hill and Rainbow Hill.

If successful, the scheme will be rolled out in 14 sites across the county next year.

Dr Richard Harling, the trust's director of public health announced the latest phase of the Choosing Health programme at the trust's board meeting.

The trust has already invested £850,000 in a raft of health improvement measures from fighting flu to improving access to childhood vaccinations.

Dr Harling said: "Obesity is a time bomb for the future and if the health service doesn't start tackling it, no one else is going to. Some people say, if people are overweight let them sort themselves out,' but it's in our own interests to help people to lose weight.

"The obesity agenda is the one we have to look at.

"If we don't do something now, it's going to overwhelm the health service in 10 years time.

"The campaign to stop people smoking has already had a lot of money thrown at it."

Patients will be referred by their GPs - Dr Harling hopes at least 1,250 people will benefit in the first year.

The schemes aims to help 189 people lose five per cent of their body weight and 75 people burn off 10 per cent or their body weight.

It is hoped the scheme will improve people's health in disadvantaged areas like Warndon, Gorse Hill, Rainbow Hill, Nunnery, Cathedral and St John's in Worcester, Pickersleigh in Malvern and Westlands in Droitwich.

Money will also help smokers give up the habit - £50,000 will be spent in 2008/09 to help more than 2,700 smokers to quit with the aim of reducing smoking levels in over 16s by 21 per cent by 2010.

Cash will help reduce emergency admissions for fractured neck of femur, fund support for older people's services, forge links with organisations like Sport England and help reduce sexually transmitted infections like Chlamydia by making screening available for all 16-25- year-olds.

The investment was welcomed by trust chief executive Paul Bates.

He said: "Given the history of Worcestershire PCT's financial problems, this has been an extraordinary debate.

"That's more investment than we have managed to put in over many, many years.

"It's an exciting investment of the type we have talked about but never been able to do."