It feels a very long time since I spoke to the East Anglian Daily Times in February 2023 about an imminent junior doctors strike, saying that I hoped “the BMA and the government will be able to resolve this matter amicably so that strike action can be avoided”.

Back then, when junior doctors voted to take industrial action over a persistent erosion of real terms pay, it would have been difficult to envisage the dispute having dragged on into the spring of 2024.

My position has remained unchanged throughout. I understand why, in the midst of huge pressures on household finances, junior doctors see it as unfair that they have been subject to health service pay restraint since Gordon Brown’s government first introduced it in 2007/8.

What I cannot say, as an NHS doctor myself, is that I would ever feel comfortable walking out over pay when patients’ need for care remains unchanged.

This perspective has only been strengthened since I provided senior psychiatric emergency cover in the NHS during the strikes. I know firsthand the impact these walkouts have had on all aspects of our health service.

From a patient perspective, it has often meant that in A&E you will have been treated by senior and experienced clinical decision makers offering the very best care – while they covered for striking junior doctors. However, for those booked in for an elective knee or hip operation, the story is markedly different. The likelihood is that your procedure or appointment would have been cancelled.

For context, hospitals in our area do not have particularly long waiting lists. East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Trust, for example, is currently ranked exactly in line with the national average for patients waiting longer than 18 weeks for non-urgent consultant-led treatment following a GP referral. Not that this offers any comfort to those people in our communities still on waiting lists.

I remain hopeful for a sensible, pragmatic solution that delivers benefits – and, undeniably some compromises – to both sides of the ongoing dispute. To achieve this, all parties must accept some responsibility for the current stand-off.

It is plain to see that the approach taken by junior doctors has not always been well judged. Lengthy walkouts over Christmas and New Year – when the health service always finds itself at full stretch – were evidence of this, having undoubtedly adversely impacted upon patient care.

This said, it is more and more difficult to counter the argument that government stubbornness is among the reasons for the dispute dragging on. This is far too important to be a party political issue, as without ending the strike action it is challenging to see how a government of any kind can cut waiting lists and tackle the backlog of care created by the Covid pandemic. It is also continuing to damage the finances of hospital trusts.

Drafting in locum and agency staff is a very expensive solution during strikes, but is often unavoidable. The hundreds of millions it is costing would be far better redirected to improve pay for existing medical staff, which in turn would boost staff retention. This would also end the ever-growing resentment amongst permanent NHS employees that agency staff are being paid twice as much for doing the same job.

The Covid pandemic, twinned with the economic impact of Putin’s war in Ukraine, has added to the inflationary pressures which damage take home pay for all workers. Combine this with real terms pay erosion for doctors of between 25% and 35% and it’s plain to see why those on strike feel they’ve lost out.

As an increasing number of highly skilled NHS employees leave behind permanent jobs for better pay with private health providers and agencies, or even leave the profession altogether, the government must find a way to change the feeling of exhaustion and demoralisation amongst the NHS workforce.

It is, however, totally right for the government to rule out a 35% one-off rise for junior doctors as unrealistic and unaffordable. Phasing in a meaningful above inflationary increase in pay over a longer period – perhaps five years – looks to me far more feasible. It’s important to remember that junior doctors are often saddled with £100,000 in debt after completing medical school, so perhaps a debt write-off plan may be a further incentive to staff staying in the NHS, provided they complete a certain number of years’ service.

One thing for certain is that this dispute needs to end and to end quickly. Until it does, the real losers will continue to be everyone forced to wait longer than necessary for treatment.

Dr Dan Poulter is Conservative MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich