EDITOR, - C M S Royston and colleagues find it hard to discern a role for “the centres for minimally invasive surgery” that “the government is setting up.”1 I hope that I can help them. The centres in London and Leeds have been funded jointly by the NHS Executive and the Wolfson Foundation as minimal access therapy training units. Government funding for the centre in Dundee comes from the Scottish Office. The centre's function is to design, validate, and encourage training of high quality across the whole range of minimal access surgery, of which laparoscopic surgery is one component.

The physical arrangements for the minimal access surgery training unit at the Royal College of Surgeons of England are now almost complete. We …