Rank: Forum user 
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Hi,
Can someone please help guide me with the Ionising
Radiations Regulations 2017, as detailed below:
I work for a care home provider and have recently been
informed that a resident within our care had received an ionising radiation
therapy injection, administered at the hospital in preparation for a full body scan.
Before returning to the care home a localised risk assessment was put in place
for a 24hour period, which in essence removed any pregnant staff from the
immediate area along with other reasonable controls.
The home has since been contacted by a representative from
the hospital who is adamant that we now have to register with the HSE, this
seems a little excessive too me?
I have reviewed the IRR guidance document via the HSE
website that provides a graded approach on how the regulator controls exposure
levels and what action to take. In all honesty it’s not a field that I am experienced
in and I am seeking advice.
Considering the above information would it be necessary for
me to “notify” the HSE of this activity, any help would be greatly received.
Thanks
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I’d get back to the hospital and talk to their Medical Physicist who should know what is going on. Under the IRR 2017 “Notification” only applies to natural radiation sources such as radon gas or working with radioactive ores etc. For more serious work the terms registration and consent apply. Have the hospital told you, what radioisotope patient has been given, and how much, what activity, what is the half-life of the isotope? I am assuming that it will be excreted from the patient. Can they tell how they expect this to happen? They must provide this information under regulation 16.
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 2 users thanked A Kurdziel for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Rank: Super forum user
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I recently underwent the tests you describe at our local nuclear medicine centre on two separate occasions. The guidance I was given was that I should avoid contact with children and potentially pregnant females for 24 hours after the test, but that thereafter there would be no lasting effect. There was certainly no mention of any need to report this to any authority. The information was provided in a booklet from the NHS Trust.
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1 user thanked chris.packham for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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The information that a hospital gives to patients is for patients in their own home. For people in care as mentioned by OP the rules used to be that there was a requirement for staff to be protected and that included registering with the HSE. They normally asked for one registration for multiple sites and nothing more. The rest of the regulations were ignored by the HSE as they then deemed it no real risk but the regs required the registration. With the new graded approach you may not even have to register. My advice would be to contact HSE direct and ask the question.
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