Despite attacks from politicians and the media, the residents doctors’ strike is a necessary response to the NHS crisis, explains Graham Kirkwood

Resident doctors took to the picket line at the RVI in Newcastle on Friday at the start of their five-day strike. Numbers were rising throughout the morning as more and more colleagues joined the action. Lots of toots from cars going by cheered up the pickets. The strikers were joined by campaigners from Keep our NHS Public and Save South Tyneside Hospital Campaign who were well received.

Pay is an issue, with a real-terms reduction of around 20% since 2008, despite the pay rises won by the last wave of strikes.

Equally as important is the issue of jobs. Pickets told Counterfire there were thirty applicants going for every specialty training post. There’s a bottleneck in the system meaning severe shortages of doctors in the NHS are predicted for the future.

The public need to understand that it is taxpayers’ money which is spent training the doctors we need, who then face no future in the UK and are forced to work abroad. If you can’t get a GP appointment, then why are there qualified GPs who can’t get jobs because posts are not being funded?

The NHS is still in crisis and once again it is the young doctors who are showing the way. Victory to the resident doctors. They are the real future of our NHS, not Wes Streeting.