Fit for Purpose: Does radiation personal protective equipment provision match the requirements of our trauma and orthopaedics surgical workforce?

Introduction: The use of ionising radiation for fluoroscopic interventions is widespread across many surgical specialities. Employers have a legal responsibility to ensure healthcare workers are appropriately protected from this hazard, with one component of this being provision of radiation personal protective equipment (PPE).

Methods: Independent studies were undertaken across four regions of England in 2023 (North West (NW), Wessex, West Midlands and Severn) in 35 hospital trusts to catalogue and evaluate radiation PPE provision in theatres. Size and appropriateness of radiation PPE for surgeon use (i.e. wrap-around protection and ≥0.25 mm lead weight equivalence (LWE)) was correlated with size requirements of the workforce.

Results: For all radiation PPE in orthopaedic theatres 67.4 % (n = 844/1253) did not meet the standard of providing 0.25 mm LWE wrap around torso protection. Approximately one third (33.9 %) of all surgeons (n = 294/865) in NW, Wessex or West Midlands were unable to access a wrap around gown of size appropriate to them. We found a mismatch in the size of the radiation PPE provision and the size requirements of all surgeons irrespective of gender, which particularly affected those using the larger and smaller sizes of gown.

Conclusions: Provision of radiation PPE for orthopaedic surgeons across four large regions of England is inadequate. We encourage all trusts and surgeons to appraise their current provision.