We continue to progress the regulation of medical exposures to ionising radiation, and have recently commenced inspecting dental practitioners. We have also carried out a survey of radiation doses in X-ray services in Ireland.
Over the past few months, we have expanded our inspections of medical exposure to ionising radiation to include dental services. There are nearly 1,400 dental service providers (undertakings) in Ireland. Initial inspections were conducted in late 2020 and will be published in the coming days.
To support the dental sector’s regulatory compliance, dental undertakings will be issued a self-assessment questionnaire on a region-by-region basis throughout 2021. The self-assessment questionnaire will allow dental undertakings to appraise their level of compliance and identify any possible risks or perceived gaps in practice. The assessment will also provide information on the sector’s compliance with the regulations. Designated managers of dental services will gain access to an online portal to facilitate the issue and submission of the regulatory self-assessment questionnaire over the coming months.
General X-Ray Diagnostic Reference Level Survey
As part of our responsibilities under Irish and European legislation, we issued a survey to 140 X-ray services requesting information on typical radiation doses received by patients as part of general X-ray procedures.
Such procedures include chest X-rays, mammograms and other simple X-ray procedures, which cumulatively account for the greatest volume of exposures to ionising radiation for medical purposes annually. This is the first survey of general X-ray procedures conducted in Ireland in 10 years. The findings will allow us to assess standard radiation doses for typical X-ray procedures and provide a recommended reference value that hospitals and other practices should adhere to when best practice is followed. This can also be used as a tool to help standardise radiation doses amongst different services and, in time, help keep the radiation doses received by patients as low as possible while also ensuring the quality of images produced for diagnosis. Adherence to nationally generated diagnostic reference levels will generally be assessed as part of inspections of medical and dental undertakings.
This will be the first of a series of surveys over the coming years, assessing different thematic areas of diagnostic X-ray procedures. Following the completion of this initial survey, future surveys will include an evaluation of X-ray dosage levels used as guidance as part of treatments in interventional radiology and cardiology procedures. The results of this survey will be published on www.hiqa.ie later in 2021.
Find out more about our work in ionising radiation here.