Surgeons warn changes will fail without investment in training

Surgeons in the United Kingdom are calling on the government to provide protected time for both trainers and trainees in surgery to guarantee standards in the new shortened training curriculum, details of which were formally unveiled last week by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

The curriculum changes are part of an overall government initiative to modernise medical careers in every specialty and to shorten the training period of consultants. They will be tested in three pilots in each of the nine surgical specialties across England and Wales next year, before being …