Executive summary
Date(s) of inspection:
May 2025
Aim of inspection
To assess compliance with the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017 (IRR17) with regard to dose management and dose restriction during the statutory outage.
Focussing on arrangements to demonstrate compliance with IRR17 regulations 8 (radiation risk assessment) and 9 (restriction of exposure), and observation of working practices within the radiologically controlled area (RCA) against company standards and relevant good practice (RGP).
To review local arrangements against the IRR17 regulation 7 Consents corporate safety assessment submission to support the high activity sealed source (HASS) consent, taking into account the requirements of IRR17 regulations 8, 9, 13, and 28 - 30 and how compliance is demonstrated.
Subject(s) of inspection
- IRR17 - Rating: GREEN
Key findings, inspector's opinions and reasons for judgement made
The inspection provided suitable time to discuss the EDF Hartlepool R1 114 statutory outage ALARP report, examine documentation and undertake a plant walkdown.
The focus of the inspection was on the management of dose exposures to workers ensure they were restricted to as low as reasonably practicable.
EDF demonstrated they clearly understood the dose and radioactive contamination challenges presented during the outage.
EDF displayed significant focus on contamination control and learning from previous events to reduce the number of personal contamination events during this outage.
Accepting that the overall collective and individual doses estimates are low, I was content that EDF have robust dose tracking tools to monitor doses across the outage and that any deviation from the estimated doses are acted upon quickly.
A plant walkdown provided the opportunity to observe work being undertaken. A small number of observations were made, and along with some comments regarding the documentation reviewed, which I will follow up during routine interactions with the site Head of Radiological Protection.
I took the opportunity to undertake a review of EDF arrangements in relation to the use and storage of the high activity sealed source (HASS), as part of the on-going assessment of EDF corporate arrangements in support of the IRR17 regulation 7 consent for HASS.
Overall I was content that at the time of the inspection dose exposures related to the outage work were being managed to ALARP.
Conclusion
I judged that, on the basis of evidence sampled at the time of this inspection, compliance with those aspects of IRR17 reviewed was demonstrated, and that outage dose exposures are well controlled, and an inspection rating of Green (no formal action) is appropriate.