Document is current

Article History

Received: 16 December 2025

Accepted: 22 January 2026

First Online: 14 February 2026

Declarations

:

: GvB, NCC and MG are proctors for Intuitive Surgical, NP and ZK have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to declare. The Portsmouth Robotic Essentials Course was developed to compliment the da Vinci training pathway, but is not a formal Intuitive course. Intuitive Surgical had no role in the report design, data collection, analysis, interpretation or manuscript preparation.

: This is a quality improvement project registered with our Research and Development Department (R&D). Data collection was anonymised and analysed retrospectively. As this report constituted an evaluation of an established educational programme using routinely collected data, R&D confirmed that formal Research Ethics Committee approval was not required. All patients participating in the courses provided written informed consent specifically for involvement in the course including the procedure, as stated on the consent form. Governance arrangements including consent process and patient safety considerations, were reviewed as part of the Royal College of Surgeons accreditation process for the course. All procedures were performed under the strict supervision of accredited consultant surgeons and as standard-of-care operations, with patient safety prioritised at all times.