In 2000 Mark Jones, Primary Care Policy and Practice Advisor at the RCN wrote to The Society of Radiographers concerning nursing requests for radiographic examinations and treatment.  Charlotte Beardmore, the President of the Society of Radiographers responded as follows:

"Thank you for your letter of 18th September concerning nursing requests for radiographic examinations and treatment.

A copy of the relevant College of Radiographers guidance is enclosed.  A radiographer may not irradiate a member of the general public unless the procedure is properly authorised and the benefits of clinical irradiation outweigh the risks.

Proper authorisation is covered by the Ionising Radiations (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2000, commonly referred to as IR(ME)R.  These state that the referrer must be a registered medical or dental practitioner or other health professional.  However, IR(ME)R also requires that every such 'entitled practitioner' be approved by the employing authority.

Thus the radiographer must know the identity of all nurses the employer has formally determined to be competent to order radiation examinations and treatment.  Providing this is the case and the radiographer can be certain the exposure is clinically justified, there should be no objection to a request that originates from a member of the nursing profession.

This is a significant departure from the earlier 'Popumet' regulations 1988.  IR(ME)R 2000 places  the responsibility for the exposure with the one who exposes the patient rather than the referring officer (as previously), hence the heightened caution being demonstrated by radiographers.

I do hope this explanation will help to resolve the matter."

(Letter from Charlotte Beardmore President of the Society of Radiographers, dated 14.10.03)

 

My interpretation of this is that we can indeed request X Ray examinations if our employer "approves".  I would also add that we should be competent to interpret the result and act upon it. 

We need to negotiate locally quoting national guidance above.  In some areas the X ray request form already has Nurse Practitioner listed along with GP, Consultant etc in the section where the requester's name is written.