Nigel Standfield was head of the London Postgraduate School of Surgery and professor of vascular surgery and head of surgical education at Imperial College. He was born in Wuppertal, West Germany on 31 August 1951. His father, Douglas John Standfield, had served in the British and Indian Armies during the Second World War and then in British intelligence. His mother, Norah Molly Standfield née Taylor, was a sports teacher who had trained in the Army. The family later moved to Street in Somerset, where Standfield’s father worked as an advertising manager. Standfield attended Sexey’s School in Bruton, Somerset, where he was a good all-rounder, excelling at cricket and football as well as his academic work. He went on to study medicine at King’s College Hospital Medical School in London, qualifying in 1975. He held junior posts at King’s College Hospital, London, as a registrar in dental surgery, a senior registrar in general surgery and then a Pfizer research fellow on the thrombosis unit. In 1990 Standfield was appointed as a consultant vascular surgeon at Hammersmith Hospital and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and the Royal Brompton Hospital, London. He had a varied clinical practice, with a particular expertise and interest in congenital vascular malformations. From 2001 he was an intercollegiate examiner for general surgery and was chairman of the intercollegiate specialty board in general surgery. He was appointed associate dean for surgery in the London Deanery in 2005 and the first head of the London Postgraduate School of Surgery in 2008, the largest surgical training organisation in the world. In 2011 he was appointed as professor of vascular surgery and surgical education at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England, he was a member of the council from 2016 to 2020. He helped develop surgical training programmes in West Africa and China and helped organise training posts for overseas doctors in London. He also operated on children with complex vascular abnormalities in West Africa. He made several visits to Ghana, as an external trainer for the West African College of Surgeons from 2013. He enjoyed fishing and ornithology. Standfield died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis on 15 March 2021. He was 69. He was survived by his wife Donna (née Williams), an emergency practitioner, whom he married in 1978, their three sons Paul, David and Tom, and four grandchildren.