Recommended position for wearing of personal dosemeters. Statement of the British Institute of Radiology

The practice of wearing personal dosemeters for monitoring radiation dose is well established, some of the earliest dosemeters used for this purpose being the BD11 thimble chambers marketed by the Baldwin Instrument Company. Prior to the setting up of the Radiological Protection Service (RPA), the predecessor of the National Radiological Protection Board, a film monitoring service was offered by the National Physical Laboratory. Several personal monitoring services are now available. Publication 9 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP, 1966) states that the assessment of the upper limit of the doses liable to be incurred may be accomplished by a number of methods, one of which is individual monitoring. It goes on to advise that “the Commission recognizes that dose records must be based upon methods and upon readings of monitoring instruments which do not necessarily give an accurate measure of the doses relevant to the recommended maximum permissible doses for the whole body or its various organs and tissues. Such readings must therefore be subject to interpretation by qualified experts in the light of the particular circumstances”.