Code of Practice for Nuclear Medicine

The Radiation Safety Act 2016 came into force on 7 March 2017. The Act is administered by the Ministry of Health’s Office of Radiation Safety. The Act sets out high-level safety and security obligations in section 9–12. There are many different types of radiation use and the requirements are often very technical. The Act therefore authorises the issuing of codes of practice to set out more detailed requirements relating to individual areas of practice.

This code applies to all activities associated with the administration of unsealed radiopharmaceuticals to patients to diagnose or treat disease, or for clinical or pre-clinical research. These activities include, but are not limited to, the practices of nuclear medicine, positron emission tomography, in vivo diagnostics and sentinel node biopsy procedures that use radiopharmaceuticals.