MRI Safety Notices

Safety must be of paramount importance in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) departments. The hazards present with MRI can quickly cause death or serious injury if not properly managed.

To minimise risk, the MHRA recommends that MRI departments have control of access of personnel and equipment to the MR environment by having an MR Controlled Access Area and that suitable safety signage is in place. This signage plays a key role in alerting individuals to these hazards, however, to date, no standardised signage exists.

To address the wide disparity and deficiencies of MRI safety notices in the UK, IPEM in collaboration with representatives from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Health and Safety Sign Association (HSSA) and the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have produced a set of MRI safety notices for free download.

This set includes recommended safety notices for MR Controlled Access Area entrances, MRI scanner room doors, MRI scanner room entrance floors, approaches to cryogen quench pipe exhausts and entrances to regions of elevated magnetic flux density (>0.5mT) other than the MRI scanner room.

Clear and unambiguous labels for emergency buttons, the oxygen alarm/monitor and the environmental control/display have been provided. Recommendations for floor demarcation within the MRI scanner room to assist with the safe use of ancillary equipment have been given.  It is recognised that these safety notices will not be suitable for all MRI systems (e.g., permanent magnet MRI scanners) and MRI departments, but can serve as templates.