‘People do want to see an end to this but there is equally that resolve to be absolutely willing to continue until something is done.’

Ross Nieuwoudt, deputy chair of the BMA Mersey regional resident doctors committee, explains the feeling among members out on strike this week – the fifteenth round of industrial action in the long-running BMA campaign to restore resident doctors’ pay.

Dr Nieuwoudt says ‘there was a lot of disappointment’ that a deal which could have been presented to members to vote on was so close until the Government moved the goalposts on pay at the eleventh hour.

That the Government would dilute its offer so close to a breakthrough has made many doctors ‘more willing to strike’, he said, noting how ‘many people have lost faith’ in Wes Streeting since he has become health secretary.

He says Government messaging about resident doctors being offered a ‘35 per cent’ pay uplift across four years was ‘frustrating’ because the context of pay erosion is not mentioned. Resident doctors’ pay remains 21 per cent down in real terms since 2008.

‘If I take a tenner off you, and give you £4 back, that doesn’t sound like a great deal for you – but I can say I’ve given you £4 more than everyone else. At the end of the day, you’re still worse off than you were before.

‘So, if the person who took that money from you gives you a fraction back and tells you to be grateful for that then you’re not going to take it very well. And I don’t think doctors are, and that’s one of the reasons they’ve come out on strike again – when none of us want to.

‘It feels like political games. They can do something about it, but they choose not to.’

Mr Streeting’s threat to remove 1,000 of the 4,500 specialty training places that had been offered was ‘perverse’, says Dr Nieuwoudt, because it is ‘an admission that we need more doctors’ which means that taking those jobs away is a ‘direct assault on the public’ and a ‘major error’ from the Government.

He notes the existing prevalence of corridor care on non-strike days,

This has been exacerbated since locum rates were cut in the Mersey region, with ‘massive gaps’ in doctor rotas over the Easter weekend.

‘I’m more disappointed for patients than I am for us. They are the ones waiting in corridors or spending their last moments with their families in corridors. And that’s not the kind of care I envisioned giving when I was in medical school.

‘We need to have more respect for patients, and more respect for the NHS, by ensuring that there’s adequate staffing.’

Dr Nieuwoudt says there are two main issues around jobs for resident doctors; first that there simply are not enough substantive roles, and secondly that there are not enough training places to skill up the specialists of the future.

However, the BMA resident doctors committee says it is unclear from the Government’s latest offer whether any of the 4,500 specialty training places in it were new jobs or repurposed locally employed doctor roles.

‘We really need to be doing both,’ he says. ‘The offer did not contain any good evidence of how these jobs would be distributed, what specialties, where they were coming from or how they would be funded. It was a wish and a prayer to try and convince us that what was being offered was enough.’

Mr Streeting shared findings of a YouGov survey, which show decreased public support for the resident doctor strikes, saying ‘people and patients are understandably fed up’.

Dr Nieuwoudt says he understands patients’ frustration. ‘No one wants doctors to strike, but they are fundamentally important to maintaining the healthcare of the country.

‘But many simultaneously recognise that, to maintain a world-class health service, you need to pay better than cut-price wages and maintain the standards we used to see.

‘Everyone sees the condition the NHS is in. They see the corridor care, and the long waiting lists the Government is trying to desperately convince us are coming down but people are waiting years for procedures and are just getting sicker.

‘It’s been a choice to divest away from the healthcare service. Over time, that damage has been done and it takes a lot of time, effort and money to reverse that. They need to put the money back in.’

Mr Streeting insists resident doctors have been the ‘stand-out winners’ when it comes to public-sector pay awards. He says the latest offer was designed with the BMA leadership, so finds it ‘deeply disappointing’ it was not put to members to vote on.

Jack Fletcher (pictured top, furthest right), chair of the BMA resident doctors committee for England, says: ‘The health secretary may well be “disappointed” but he is failing to acknowledge a deal was taking shape until his government quietly watered it down, reducing the money on the table, then stretching what was left over too many years to make it worthwhile.

‘Resident doctors are as keen as he is to bring an end to the strikes, but his government needs to put an offer on the table that we can accept, and which doesn’t change at the last minute.

‘He also needs to stop using our next generation of consultants as a bargaining chip – taking away 1,000 posts when patients and the NHS needs senior doctors for the future.

‘We know that strikes bring disruption – despite NHS England’s assurances that it can maintain the vast majority of services running for patients during times of industrial action. Many senior doctors will be covering for us and, whilst that of course benefits patients, we know they are also exhausted and as demoralised as we are.

‘We are willing to bring an end to industrial action, but we are not seeing that willingness from Government so far.’

Emma Runswick, deputy council chair of the BMA, told BBC Breakfast: ‘Over two weeks ago we thought we were relatively close to making a deal to avoid further strike action in the NHS and it’s [the Government] that changed that.

‘That position shifted, and since we’ve announced strike action they’ve decided they are going to withdraw 1,000 training jobs that were part of that deal, that are there for workforce planning, for the consultants and GPs of the future, which patients need.

‘It’s very disappointing to see both that shift in investment and the removal of the jobs offer. It means that a deal is much more difficult to reach.’

The first day of the resident doctors’ six-day walkout on 7 April coincided with strike action by BMA staff who are challenging a below-inflation pay award from BMA management.

Dr Nieuwoudt says he supported the action of BMA staff, who equally stand shoulder to shoulder with the resident doctors they work to support.

‘Investing in the people who have made the BMA a functional trade union in recent years is a sensible investment,’ he says.