The Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2018

Equipment: general duties of the employer

15.—(1) An employer who has control over any equipment must—

(a) implement and maintain a quality assurance programme in respect of that equipment which must as a minimum permit—

(i) the assessment of the dose of ionising radiation that a person may be exposed to from an exposure to which these Regulations apply, by way of the ordinary operation of that equipment; and

(ii) the administered activity to be verified;

(b) draw up, keep up-to-date and preserve at each medical radiological installation an inventory of equipment at that installation and, when so requested, must provide it to the relevant enforcing authority.

(2) The inventory referred to in paragraph (1)(b) must contain the following information—

(a) name of manufacturer;

(b) model number;

(c) serial number or other unique identifier;

(d) year of manufacture; and

(e) year of installation.

(3) An employer must undertake adequate—

(a) testing of any equipment before it is first used for a medical radiological purpose;

(b) performance testing at regular intervals;

(c) performance testing following a maintenance procedure which is capable of affecting the equipment’s performance.

(4) No person is permitted to use fluoroscopy equipment unless that equipment features—

(a) a device to control automatically the dose rate; or

(b) an image intensifier or equivalent device.

(5) Equipment used for interventional radiology and computed tomography must have a device or other feature capable of informing the practitioner, at the end of an exposure, of relevant parameters for assessing the patient dose.

(6) An employer must—

(a) put in place any measures necessary to improve inadequate or defective performance of equipment;

(b) specify acceptable performance criteria for equipment; and

(c) specify what corrective action is necessary when, further to the application of any criteria specified under paragraph (b), equipment is ascertained to be defective; such corrective action may include taking the equipment out of service.