Background: Opportunities for development for nurses is affected by the possibility in the interprofessional teams. Their working environment with good: management, workingclimate, teamwork, respect, trust, communication are important factors in competence development.

Aim: to get increased knowledge of the experience nurses have regarding competence development through learningopportunities and educations, and theirs impact on care.

Method: mixed methods, a qualitative method based on open questions in the survey study, and a quantitative presentation from the numerical answers.

Results: the qualitative part is related from 15 informants, 10 had a bachelor’s degree and 8 with master’s degree. They had been employed between 8 months and 28 years, average of 8 years, at the current ICU or postoperative unit. The strongest effect of competence development through experience, deeper and wider knowledge was an increased safety and security. This improved their possibility to give better information, communication and an increased feeling of safety to patients, close relatives, and other personnel.

Conclusion: For relatively new employees there is an increased opportunity for competence development, whilst more senior employees experienced that there was less progress at their knowledge level or higher. Longtime employment does not correlate to the highest self-estimated knowledge level, there was only 1 expert and 1 proficient-expert of 15 informants.