Posted By Steven You are correct in saying that they are not allowed to work near radiation, also the "young person" might actually come under the definition of a child. http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg364.pdf will tell you everything you know, i hope Steve

Posted By Jonathan Breeze Steve beat me to it!

Posted By peter gotch Hi James What the relevant regs say is "Subject to paragraph (3), no employer shall employ a young person for work - (a) which is beyond his physical or psychological capacity; (b) involving harmful exposure to agents which are toxic or carcinogenic, cause heritable genetic damage or harm to the unborn child or which in any other way chronically affect human health; (c) involving harmful exposure to radiation; (d) involving the risk of accidents which it may reasonably be assumed cannot be recognised or avoided by young persons owing to their insufficient attention to safety or lack of experience or training; or (e) in which there is a risk to health from - (i) extreme cold or heat; (ii) noise; or (iii) vibration, and in determining whether work will involve harm or risk for the purposes of this paragraph, regard shall be had to the results of the assessment. So it is not a blanket prohibition on work near radiation. If it was you couldn't do work experience in the open air on a farm, cos of the sunlight. So to put it into perspective, you could have someone shadowing a radiographer whilst remaining behind the lead shield at all times and conclude that the risk was so small as to indicate that the work experience did not involve "harmful exposure to radiation". Unless one takes this in context, the list of prohibitions means that you couldn't do work experience in the office because of the noise from the photocopier. Regards, Peter

Posted By Jonathan Breeze Peter raised a valid point that the devil is in the detail and interpretation. If there was no way an inexperienced trainee could get around the shielding whilst the process was in operation, (e.g. in an interlocked room) then all well and good. However if exposure was possible just by walking around a shield, then no way would I approve that placement as point (d) of the regs quoted by Peter could potentially be breached. Hence my point about wearing PPE while in the 'hot' lab being unacceptable. P.S. - I had assumed from the context that we were talking about Ionising Radiation here. Peter/ Jim do you have a web link to the regs you have referred to?

Posted By Jim Walker http://www.opsi.gov.uk/c..._highlighter_first_match Here is regs But ACOP might be more useful Possible the 18 limit is minimum age of classified workers

Posted By peter gotch http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/19970135.htm Regards, Peter

Posted By John Holland1 Statutory Instrument 1997 No. 135 The Health and Safety (Young Persons) Regulations 1997 A young person on work experience isn't employed, so the above regulations are not applicable. Regards John

Posted By John Holland1 Paul, Sorry about that I missed that those regulation had been revoked in 1999. However, the employment part of young people in MHSWR 199 stands. I would therefore go along with the previous response from Richard Chalkey that the limit apllied top other people would apply. John