Surgery: Training
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the number of Training Interface Group fellowship posts affected by the withdrawal of central funding and national support, broken down by surgical specialty.
Answered by Karin Smyth
NHS England made the decision in 2025 to discontinue central funding of the salary support component of the Training Interface Group (TIG) programme, and to target financial resources more effectively to address regional workforce priorities.
Regions or provider organisations that wish to continue developing these skills are still able to recruit, fund, and train staff using the curriculum set by the Joint Committee on Surgical Training.
NHS England is also working to understand where they can enhance and support smaller, highly specialised areas of practice. NHS England specialised commissioning teams will feed into this work, which will consider how TIG programmes could be best supported in the future.
The importance of maintaining pipeline supply and capabilities in the specialist surgical workforce is recognised within the legacy functions of NHS England that the Government intends to transfer into the Department of Health and Social Care.
Work has commenced to ensure oversight and assurance of a number of specialist areas of practice, including selected TIG programmes, working with regions, specialised commissioning teams, and national stakeholders to ensure adequate numbers of trained consultants with the required skills.
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