Health and Personal Social Services
Northern Ireland
Regional Medical Physics
Agency
Physics and Clinical Engineering
in the Service of
Health Care
Musgrave & Clark House
Royal Hospitals’ Site
Tel: 028 90634430George Walmsley - Chairman
Fax: 028 90313040Canice McGivern- Director of Medical Physics/
Head of Service
THE NORTHERN IRELAND REGIONAL MEDICAL PHYSICS AGENCY
The Agency provides a physics and engineering service to all HPSS Trusts in Northern Ireland and was established as a HPSS Special Agency in April 1994. It has a four person Board and is primarily funded through contracts with Trusts and other HPSS bodies. The staff of over 100 are currently based at Royal Victoria, BelfastCityand ForsterGreenHospitals, and include physicists, engineering technical offers and administrative staff.
OBJECTIVES
- To provide, scientific, engineering and technical services in support of diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of patients.
- To provide direct clinical services in agreed areas of nuclear medicine, ultrasound and physiological measurement.
- To provide a comprehensive radiation protection service covering ionising and non-ionising radiation to Northern Ireland.
- To provide a comprehensive radiotherapy physics service.
- To undertake testing, calibration and repair of instrumentation and equipment used in health care.
- To provide advice on the application of the physical and clinical engineering sciences to health care.
- To undertake research and development.
- To undertake teaching and training in the support of the above.
CULTURE
Medical Physics staff work closely with clinical and non-clinical colleagues in Trust settings. We aim to ensure that our services are customer led and that they are timely and flexible and maintain high standards.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
The Agency has a significant and developing research programme with the main emphasis on imaging and nuclear medicine, co-ordinated by Dr Canice McGivern. There is an expanding service development programme in radiotherapy physics.
The Agency has five major Recognised Research Groups funded by the HPSS R&D Office and is involved in a wide range of other research programmes.
SERVICES PROVIDED
The Agency aims to provide cost effective services to defined standards which meet the requirements of the various Trusts and Directorates involved.
The main areas of services provided are:
- Radiation Protection:
A comprehensive service to all users of radiation (X-rays, radioisotopes etc), lasers and other non-ionising (ultra-violet, microwave etc) services.
Provision of Radiation Protection advisers and qualified experts to health care and other bodies.
Calibration of equipment and provision of a personal monitoring service (film badge and TLDs).
- Imaging:
Calibration of equipment, QA services, patient dosimetry services as well as general scientific support for all modalities (including MRI). Particular emphasis is currently being placed on patient dose monitoring and the digital imaging (processing, multimodality, quantification, 3D etc).
- Radioisotopes:
A regional radiopharmacy, located at the RVH, supplies radiopharmaceuticals on daily basis to five hospitals. A clinical nuclear medicine service is provided at the RVH and BCH in collaboration with the Radiology Departments. Scientific support provided.
- Radiotherapy Physics:
The Radiotherapy Physics Section of the Agency provides services, both scientific and technical in nature, to the Northern Ireland Centre for Clinical Oncology based at the Cancer Centre at BelfastCityHospital. The Centre is the sole provider of radiotherapy services in Northern Ireland. With more than 3,500 new patients per year plus 25% recurrent referrals it is the top third of all UK radiotherapy centres.
- Clinical Engineering and Equipment Management:
Electronics design and instrument development.
Equipment safety testing and repair.
Advice on, and support of, new equipment and procedures.
- Physiological Sciences:
Expertise available in Doppler ultrasound (vascular lab), neurophysiology and ophthalmic electrophysiology.
- Scientific Computing:
Computing support for clinical and scientific applications.
Networks and PC support.
Databases.
- Applied Sciences:
Interdisciplinary and project work covering various clinical disciplines.
- Research and Development:
A range of both support and collaboration is developing involving Clinical Directorates
and the two Universities.
- Teaching:
Various courses covering the above areas.
We welcome discussion and enquiries about our current services and those we might be able to provide.
Information of Web Site
CONTACTS
General Enquiries
Office Administrator, Tel 028 9063 4630
Director of Medical Physics/Head of Service
Dr Canice McGivern,
Musgrave & Clark House, Royal Hospitals' Site, Tel 028 9063 4430
Radiation Protection & Imaging
Mr John Biggart, (Radiodiagnostic Physics),
ForsterGreenHospital, Tel 028 90944385
Dr Ian Gillan, (Lasers)
ForsterGreenHospital, Tel 028 90944385
Mr Adam Workman (MRI & Digital Image),
ForsterGreenHospital, Tel 028 90944385
Clinical Engineering and Physiological Sciences
Mr Paul Brannigan, (Ultrasound),
RoyalVictoriaHospital, Belfast. Tel 028 9063 3630
Dr George Dempsey, (Clinical Engineering)
RoyalVictoriaHospital, Belfast. Tel 028 9063 3630
Nuclear Medicine and Radioisotopes
Dr Chris Marshall,
RoyalVictoriaHospital, Belfast, Tel 028 9063 3530
Radiotherapy
Mr Leslie Frew,
Northern Ireland Cancer Centre, BelfastCityHospital, Lisburn Road, BelfastBT9 7AB
Tel 028 90699389 Ext 5329
Finance and Corporate Services Management
Mrs Paddie Cassidy,
Musgrave & Clark House, Royal Hospitals' Site, Belfast BT12 6BA
Tel 028 9063 4430
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE