General Principles & Governance

Not clinical advice. ProtocolPulse is a reference tool only. It does not constitute clinical advice and does not replace the professional judgement of a qualified clinician, radiographer, or radiologist. All imaging decisions remain the responsibility of the authorising IR(ME)R practitioner.

Guidelines may have been updated. All guidelines referenced are current at the stated version date (March 2026). Guidelines are subject to revision by NICE, RCR, and other issuing bodies at any time. Users must verify all criteria against the latest published source before relying on them clinically.

Use common sense. The criteria presented are summaries of source guidelines. They do not capture every clinical nuance. Users must apply professional judgement and common sense, and refer directly to the full cited guideline text if any content appears inconsistent with their clinical knowledge or local practice.

Individual patient factors. This tool does not account for individual patient contraindications, allergies, implant status, renal function, pregnancy, or any clinical circumstance not captured in the published guideline criteria.

IR(ME)R responsibility. ProtocolPulse does not fulfil, replace, or substitute for any employer obligation under IR(ME)R 2017, including the requirement to provide referral guidelines to referrers under Regulation 6(5)(a). It is a supplementary reference aid only.

Medical device status. ProtocolPulse has not been assessed or registered as a medical device under the UK Medical Devices Regulations 2002 or the MHRA's Software and AI as a Medical Device framework. Before deployment in a clinical NHS setting, the responsible organisation must conduct an MHRA classification assessment.

Created with the assistance of AI. The clinical content, protocol criteria, and guideline summaries in ProtocolPulse v2.1 were developed with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic). All clinical criteria have been cross-referenced against the cited source guidelines. AI-assisted content may contain errors or omissions — users should apply common sense and verify against the original cited sources.