Background and Aim ‘See one, do one, teach one!’ is a phrase doctors are familiar with. This risk tolerant approach has often been evident among medical staff even in high risk areas such as intensive care. Recent changes in training have moved the medical training closer to that of nurses. We hypothesised that these changes had not extended far enough from the undergraduate experience and that discrepancies in equipment training still existed between the two groups in an intensive care unit.

Methods Survey of junior doctors and nurses working in 9 units in a neonatal network. A questionnaire was designed based on discussions within a multidisciplinary focus group.

Results 46 doctors and 55 nurses responded. 87% of doctors vs. 33.3% of nurses reported using equipment in the past 6 months they were unfamiliar with or untrained in; 18% of doctors vs. 7% of nurses indicated this happened at least twice per month. 40% of doctors vs. 45.8% of nurses cited the reason for this as ‘no one else to carry out the procedure’; 42% of doctors vs. 4.2% of nurses indicated they rarely received training and got by through trial and error. 86% of doctors and 84% of nurses agreed that equipment training was unequal.

Conclusions There is a significant gap between nurse and doctor expectation and experience of equipment training within our network. This has major implications for clinical risk. Improved training within induction procedures and skills drills and decreased tolerance of risk are necessary to promote patient safety.