A national computerised system will not be used for matching junior doctors to specialist training posts next year, the Department of Health has confirmed.

Instead deaneries will organise their own recruitment process for posts in England in 2008, and junior doctors' start dates will be staggered, the health minister Ben Bradshaw has said. He has also announced plans to re-examine the current policy allowing medical graduates from outside Europe to apply for jobs in the United Kingdom.

Abandoning a national computerised system will leave deaneries responsible for advertising their own vacancies and issuing their own application forms (which will ask for CV type information). A maximum of three recruitment processes will take place each year, although the main …