While we are all concerned about the health of the nation, the very frontline soldiers who uphold the National Health Service are often forgotten in modern times.

Doctors themselves forget that they are carers, therapists, counsellors. I believe that, like other counsellors, doctors should also receive mandatory counselling and spiritual healing for they are also human beings with emotions and relationships.

Doctors may indeed benefit from being kinder to themselves.

Doctors spend their lifetime dedicated to looking after ill patients, listening to people's health problems and their anxieties and depressions,and trying to help them.

In days gone by,there used to be enough time to be able to offer good holistic family medical care, to share mutual compassion and respect. This allowed doctors also to heal themselves and feel part of society.

Now, doctors seem to be some alienated species.

In recent years, doctors have had to work under enormous pressures with increasing demands on their time and energy; often doing several jobs in one without adequate resources or pay.

They are expected to offer the highest standards of care in a few minutes without making a single mistake.

We need more doctors to treat less patients a day with more time for each. Where do doctors,nurses and carers get time to heal themselves and their family so they can have the energy to heal others?

Their pay does not allow them to have regular breaks, which they desperately need. No wonder doctors and nurses are anxious and stressed out with a low morale.

Are we going to build a healthy nation with unhealthy doctors? One place which might be able to offer a safe haven of healing, where doctors can gain inner spiritual strength to survive and live a happier life, may be the National Doctor Healer Network.

I attended one meeting last week and came away feeling reassured, and recharged with love, spirituality and compassion the missing elements of healing in society today.

I felt I was not alone.

Doctors may contact Sussex Doctor Healer Network on 01273 833980 or 01444 455309.Or you can email INGLEGOOD@aol.com or DJoathall@aol.com.