We read with interest the article published by Samanta et al1 and report a study of late onset bacteraemia in our tertiary neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in Oxford, UK. We conducted a retrospective case–control study in inborn neonates over a 7-year period (2002–2009) of bacteraemia (coagulase-negative Staphylococci excluded). Our analysis was restricted to low birth weight neonates (<1500 g). Sixty cases of bacteraemia were recorded in 54 neonates and these were matched to controls for gestation and gender (table 1).