In an 11th hour development, a day before a High Court hearing was due to take place on Wednesday, England's health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, announced plans to scrap the flawed medical training application service (MTAS).

But although this has been heralded by some observers as a decision to abandon MTAS—the system for handling junior doctors' applications for training posts—it is clear that the first round of interviews set up through the service and that have already taken place or are due to take place will still be valid.

Ms Hewitt merely announced that, rather than trying to continue with MTAS, local deaneries would notify junior doctors of the outcome of the round one interviews and that selection for the second round would be done by local deaneries, not through MTAS.

“It's old news,” said Matt Jameson-Evans of Remedy UK, the doctors' group that is bringing the legal action against the Department of Health. “We knew round two was going to be done by local deaneries.”

Nearly all the posts would be filled on the first round, he said, which is where Remedy UK claims that the health department has abused its power. Dr Jameson-Evans said that …