• Medical Education
• Multidisciplinary
• Research skills

The report ‘Turning the tide’ highlighted the need to increase the capacity for clinical research in child health.1 The increase in training posts funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) will slow the fall in academic consultant positions.2 The rapid growth in clinical trials in neonatology (figure 1), however, means that all neonatal professionals need to have the necessary awareness and skills. Research involvement within a clinical service should be considered a sign of healthcare quality.3

With the separation of academic and clinical specialist training, most trainees have little involvement in research4 and proposed changes could make this worse.5 The paediatric curriculum does include research skills that are currently being refined and linked to assessment of competencies by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). There is, however, no easily accessible training, and it is thus not surprising that trainees lack confidence in this area.1

Nurses are the primary source of information for parents of babies in neonatal units6 and are thus potentially important advocates for research. Nurse training curricula include no research competencies, although the specific roles of the clinical research nurse and nurse researcher have recently been defined.7

The British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) is developing Basic Research Skills Training for all neonatal professionals with input from the NIHR Neonatal Clinical Studies Group and the RCPCH with a curriculum mapped …