I GOT embroiled in a social media discussion this week with a group of NHS workers who were responding to the news that they are to be offered counselling, physiotherapy and Zumba classes as part of a new drive to cut sickness rates.

Staff absences are estimated to cost the NHS £2.4bn a year and the biggest causes are mental health and musculoskeletal problems.

Under the measures, NHS organisations will be told to serve healthier food, promote exercise, reduce stress and provide regular health checks. Workers will also get access to stop smoking and weight-loss services.

Now we all know that the NHS is a political hot potato and, understandably, staff feel under siege by the hard-line Tory government. Their argument is that they need more staff and shorter shift patterns, not free Zumba sessions.

The added insult is that these sessions will be organised in work time when many of them don’t get a lunch hour. If that’s the case, then it needs to be addressed because providing a service that can’t be used is plain stupid.

However, in its essence, the idea of getting the NHS fit is a good one – and that’s from someone who voted Labour at the last election.

Many staff are complaining that they are simply too tired to take advantage of free exercise classes. But anyone who has ever suffered with fatigue will tell you that exercise is the best remedy. I know because I’ve had to force myself to do it.

We’ve all got a story to tell about being weighed at the clinic and being told by an obese nurse that we need to lose weight, or a doctor who drinks like a fish. One worker countered the discussion by arguing that you don’t have to be a cancer sufferer to be a good cancer nurse. True, but one would hope that the people telling us how to manage our health would be following the same brief.

Nobody is expecting NHS staff to look like supermodels and behave like paragons of virtue and we’re all united in believing that they do a stirling job in very difficult circumstances. But I do think there are a lot of excuses flying around, like the complainer who blamed his job in the NHS for doubling his weight.

NHS staff have access to more help and support to lose weight than the rest of us who have to pay for it.

Many people employed in the private sector would be over the moon with free Zumba classes.