A micro-computer system for the measurement and management of film badges and the maintenance of staff records

The Radiation Protection Service of the Royal Marsden Hospital has for many years used its own film badge monitor (Spiegler & Davis, 1959) but in 1981, it was decided to change to the NRPB film holder with Eastman Kodak Type 2 film (Marshall et al, 1980). This film holder has six windowed areas, five of which are covered by filters, and photon, beta and neutron doses can be determined from measurements of optical density within the windowed areas. Manual measurement and computation of these doses would have been extremely tedious and time-consuming and we therefore purchased a micro-computer system to facilitate the measurement and calculation of dose. At the same time, we wished to make maximum use of the computer to reduce the heavy clerical effort that is normally a feature of the management of personnel monitoring and the associated records. We have therefore developed the system to include a comprehensive database of all monitored staff and the system has been used successfully for the complete manag...