Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had recent discussions with (a) NHS England, (b) the Royal Colleges and (c) the Joint Committee on Surgical Training on the future of Training Interface Group fellowships.

The Department and NHS England regularly engage with a wide range of stakeholders on issues relating to medical education and training.

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.