Board advice following publication of the 1990 Recommendations of ICRP

The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has published new Recommendations and the board has a statutory duty to advise Government and those with responsibilities for radiation protection on the acceptability to and the applicability in the UK of those Recommendations. The Board wishes to consult widely before finalising the advice which is proposed in this document. In general, the Board endorses the conceptual framework for radiological protection recommended by ICRP. In particular, the distinction between practices and intervention is useful and is consistent with the way in which the Board has presented its recent advice. A major new concept is that of a constraint. The Board believes that the introduction of constraints provides a powerful method for improving protection against ionising radiation. The advice in this consultative document is for maximum generic values of dose constraints for both workers and the public. Finally the Board proposes to endorse the use of the radiological quantities recommended by ICRP. (author)