When nurse Helen Thorpe held a grand reunion with former colleagues she found it impossible to trace everyone she wanted to find.

Although the celebrations went ahead Mrs Thorpe was sure there were others who would have liked to come.

It was then Mrs Thorpe and her friend and colleague Jo Bell decided to set up their own medical version of the successful Friends Reunited web site.

The aim of Medics Meet Again is to reunite health care workers with long-lost contacts, colleagues and friends from their training days or early career.

Nurses, doctors, dentists, porters, paramedics, hospital support staff and surgeons will all be included.

Mrs Bell, 33, from Portslade, and Mrs Thorpe, 38, from Hove, work at St Peter's Medical Centre in Brighton.

Mrs Bell trained at Worthing Hospital in the mid-Eighties and has lost contact with the seven people who qualified with her.

Mrs Thorpe trained in London and moved around before settling in Sussex.

Mrs Bell said: "Helen and I were talking last year about how nice it would be to get in contact with the people we used to work with but with people moving about so often around the country, it was difficult to keep track.

"That was when we thought about setting up a web site especially for health care workers.

"We have a lot of happy memories of past times, but realise that as people move on losing touch is often inevitable.

"Life is so hectic these days that we thought this site could bring back a bit of nostalgia, fun and light-heartedness to all our lives.

"It is still really early days but everyone we've spoken to is very excited about it.

"As word of mouth starts to spread we are hoping it will really take off."

There are more than 300,000 members of the medical profession alone in the UK so both women have high hopes of the web site's success.

Once established, it is planned the site will expand to become a one-stop shop for the medical profession, with links to other relevant sites such as the British Medical Journal, the Royal College of Nursing and the British Dental Association.

Visitors will be able to register their details by going to the web site at www.medicsmeetagain.com