IRMER 2000
(Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations)

This legislation is designed to minimise individual's exposure to ionising radiation and therefore reduce risk.  Radiology and medical physics departments are bound by the legislation to scrutinise requests for procedures. This means that requests may now be rejected on the grounds that they do not fulfil IRMER requirements.

In practice, this means patients may return from X-Ray departments with the forms with a message that "they won't do it, doctor"

Our responsibilities

• The referral must include the referrer's contact details.
• There must be at least four patient identifiers on the form from the list below* (the list isn't exclusive)
• The clinical justification for the procedure must be clear. The regulations are very specific that the knowledge gained will make a clinical difference e.g. knowing if a rib is cracked will not help in the management of rib injury so an x-ray to confirm or refute a fracture is unnecessary. However a CXR to exclude a pneumothorax post rib injury might be necessary.
• We must specifically consider the possibility of pregnancy in females.

Full regulations can be accessed here

(*Surname, middle name, first name, DOB, Address, Post Code, Telephone, Hospital number, NHS number, NI number)

FS July 08