Preventing Patient Identification Incidents in Diagnostic Imaging, Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy – guiding principles for safe practice in the United Kingdom

IR(ME)R 2024 

Please note this guidance is currently being updated in line with the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which came into force on October 1st 2024. These changes are necessary to ensure compliance with the latest regulations, reflecting updated practices for radiation protection and patient safety in medical imaging and radiotherapy. For more information, please see here. 

Introduction

Patient identification incidents (errors and near misses) are uncommon in diagnostic imaging, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy in the United Kingdom (UK). Yet they continue to be an ongoing source of notifiable incidents for the UK regulators of The Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2017, and the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2018.

This guidance considers the causes and contributory factors leading to the misidentification of a patient and makes recommendations for future prevention.

Written in collaboration with SoR members, the four UK IR(ME)R regulators and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), it focuses on human behaviour and learning from the majority of interactions that go well rather than on identifying a person to blame. It discusses how to approach patient safety differently to further reduce these persistent incidents.

It will be useful for student radiographers, radiography educators and anyone acting as an IR(ME)R duty holder (employers, referrers, practitioners and operators).