The widely adopted international standard, IEC 825, provides generic safety advice on the construction of laser equipment to the whole of the laser community. Many countries such as the US and Australia/New Zealand have developed parallel standards that specifically address the operational safety issues concerned with the implementation of laser techniques in a variety of medical disciplines.
A Technical Report has been developed by WG4 of IEC TC76 to address the shortfall of guidance in the application of lasers in medicine. This information is directed at countries where specific national standards dealing with medical laser safety have not been produced.
This report provides advice on the main issues of good practice in the application of medical lasers whilst retaining an element of national freedom to adapt their local practice. It has been recognised in writing this report that there was a possibility for its adoption into national legislative guidance and care has been exercised to avoid prescriptive text that might unduly constrain particular national operational issues.
The current status of this report will be discussed in more detail in the light of other national initiatives and in particular the requirement for better training will be discussed in detail.