All participants described experiences of nosocomial infectious disease transmission in terms of infections they had acquired or witnessed colleagues acquire, stating common infections to be gastrointestinal and respiratory viruses, and less common meningitis, hepatitis, TB and HIV. They identified risk factors for occupationally acquired infections to be (1) exposure to patients with undiagnosed infectious diseases, especially in accident and emergency wards, (2) break-down in infection control procedures due to lack of knowledge, resources and equipment, (3) immuno-naïvety and (4) symptomatic colleagues; all of which are likely to occur during an EID outbreak. In general, nosocomial disease transmission risk was perceived to be low, although UK participants considered healthy people to be more likely to contract infectious diseases in a hospital than in the community. A breakdown in infection control procedures was deemed acceptable in some situations as some participants in Hungary, who worked in intensive care departments, expressed the view that they have 'more pressing issues' than following infection control procedures, such as 'saving lives'. Other members of this group however felt that staff, in particular accident and emergency staff, needed to be 'more afraid of patients' and thought intensive care staff to be more at risk, but also more aware. It was generally accepted that it was the responsibility of the individual HCW to report suspicion of nosocomial transmission incidences, though they expressed the belief that there was a need for more policies to protect the most vulnerable, such as for accident and emergency and pregnant staff. Participants' statements on risk factors for occupationally acquired infectious diseases are presented in appendix 2.