X-Rays

Your X-Ray and You

You are having an X-ray so that your doctor or health care practitioner can either make a diagnosis or monitor the progress of your treatment.
Your doctor or health care practitioner can explain how the information gained will help to improve your diagnosis or treatment
Our overriding concern is to ensure that when you have an X-ray, the benefits from making the right diagnosis or providing the correct treatment outweigh the very low risk involved with the X-ray itself.
We make sure that this is the case before you have an X-ray.

X-ray scans are performed by fully qualified diagnostic radiographers with experience working in NHS, HSE and Private Clinics.

With every X-ray scan in Mourne Scan Clinic an official report will be available after one hour.

Please note: Doctor Referral Required

The correct term for
your X-ray is a radiograph.

X-ray machines use radiation to generate “pictures” we need to for your diagnosis and treatment.
We are all exposed to natural background radiation every day of our lives. This comes from our environment, the air we breathe, the food we eat and even from outer space (cosmic rays).
In Northen Ireland, the largest contribution comes from natural radiation in the underlying rocks and building materials (granite). In any one year our exposure will vary according to where we have lived, where we may have travelled to and what we may have eaten.

Diagram of the typical levels of risk associated with each type of examination.

Source: www.gov.co.uk

Each medical X-ray therefore gives us a small additional dose on top of this natural background radiation. The level of dose varies with the type of radiation.
Common X-ray examinations such as a chest, the torso and the limbs, involve amounts of radiation that are equivalent to less than 3 months of natural background radiation.
The X-ray you will be having today is one of those and carries a very low risk.

1,000’s of radiographs are taken in
N Ireland every working day.

The risks from X-rays are much lower for for older people and a little higher for children. Extra care is taken with young patients.

Please inform the radiographer if you are pregnant.

Please feel free to ask us if you have any further questions or concerns.

You can refuse to have the X-ray if you do not feel you have sufficient information.