England's chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, has told MPs that he was right not to resign over the chaotic recruitment system for junior doctors.

Professor Donaldson, giving evidence to the parliamentary health select committee, said he would not take personal and sole responsibility for the problems faced by junior doctors this year when they applied for posts under the new Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) programme.

The committee, in the first evidence session of its inquiry into the MMC programme, asked why Professor Donaldson had not felt it appropriate to leave his job, considering the scale of the problems. Thousands of junior …