The media have recently highlighted the plight of our beleaguered GPs.

When we see pictures of starving people deprived of any medical help in certain parts of the world, we should be grateful we have access to our NHS.

The crisis of GPs retiring early through stress may have several reasons.

In former years, the extended family lived near to each other and a young mother would take her baby to gran, around the corner, rather than the surgery.

Successive governments have made life more difficult for doctors by setting sometimes unrealistic targets and overburdening them with paperwork.

One wonders how health ministers can run the NHS without any medical training.

Problems that would have been taken to the local vicar often end up in the GP's consulting room now churchgoing is in decline.

When we go to see our GP, we do not know whether or not he or she has just gone through a very traumatic session with a terminally ill patient.

Doctors are human beings but we expect them to be all things to all people.

We are not only fortunate to live in Great Britain but also to be registered at Park Crescent New Surgery, Lewes Road, Brighton. It has lovely GPs, nurses and receptionists. So, I say thank you on behalf of us all.

-Charles S Chapman, Dyke Road, Brighton