About ten junior doctors formed a picket line outside the hospital entrance on a blustery Monday morning as patients and staff made their way into the facility.

It is part of action which is being taken across England by 61,000 junior doctors who will refuse to work in A&E, critical care, and maternity services as they push for a pay increase of 26 per cent.

Junior doctors are currently paid £14.09 per hour which, after tax, equates to about £23,744 each year.

But the industrial action has led to more appointments being cancelled, with waiting lists having increased after nurses and midwives walked out in a similar pay disagreement over January and February.

But one junior doctor on the picket line at Colchester Hospital, who did not want to be named, said the level of responsibilities delegated to junior doctors during typical shifts has led to hundreds of professionals struggle to provide adequate levels of care to patients.

• 'Sensitive' papers containing details of hospital patients found in park

• ESNEFT 'must address' issues identified in recent inspection on Colchester Hospital

• Operation waiting lists at Colchester Hospital soaring amid 'unprecedented pressures'

She added it has also meant junior doctors who are only one or two years in to working for the NHS end up quitting the profession, or seek improved salaries and working conditions by moving to New Zealand and Australia.

She said: “Normally, I will be the only junior doctor covering seven to eight wards [during a typical weekend shift] and I’m doing tasks set out by the weekday doctors to ensure patients are kept safe.

“Eight wards of 30 people each – that’s 240 patients that I could possibly be asked to review.”

The junior doctor, who has worked at Colchester Hospital for two years as a foundation doctor having studied medicine for six years, added the inadequate pay for the level of work put means thousands of vacancies are being created by junior doctors leaving the profession.

Responding to the strikes, Nick Hulme, the chief executive of the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the strikes would lead to a raft of operations being rescheduled.

He said: “For the overwhelming majority of our patients and operations, sadly we will have to postpone those so that we can reallocate our consultant body mainly to the front door – to the urgent emergency care 24/7 services.”