Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
This report is issued as part of the Health and Safety Executive's commitment to make information about inspection and regulatory activities relating to the above site available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the GE Healthcare Ltd Grove Centre Local Liaison Committee (LLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at the site. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LLC meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there by members. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE’s Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951-4382.
NII inspections were made on 4–5 January and 27 February–1 March 2007. (Inspections are also made at GE Healthcare Ltd’s nuclear licensed sites at Cardiff (the Maynard Centre) and Harwell. Where these are relevant to the Grove Centre they are included below. For instance, the sites have many arrangements in common for compliance with the conditions attached to their site licences.)
Inspections are undertaken for the purpose of monitoring compliance with (i) the conditions attached by HSE to the nuclear site licences, and (ii) other relevant provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, including the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999. In this period routine inspections included:
Issues arising from these and previous inspections are being pursued.
Modifications: NII has written to the licensee requiring it to remedy deficiencies in its arrangements for the control of modifications to the plant and processes.
Incident: In December an unauthorised modification to a process had resulted in a release of radioactive iodine into a building. Some was inhaled by several workers, though the highest radiation dose received did not exceed the statutory limit. NII carried out a preliminary investigation, which identified as a further area of concern the inadequacy of the licensee’s arrangements for dealing with incidents involving iodine.
Neighbours’ Meeting: The site inspector attended a meeting between the site and householders living next to it. The main safety-related topics were the presence of tritium in groundwater below the site and the proposal to remove some soil next to the site that contains a small amount of radium.
As part of its regulation under the nuclear site licence NII issues formal regulatory documents, which include Consents, Approvals, Directions, and Licence Instruments. [Licence Instruments are issued: to acknowledge receipt of specified documents, eg proposals for a new or modified plant; to stipulate whether the Inspectorate intends to examine these documents; or to agree to the start of a particular phase of construction, commissioning, modification, or decommissioning]. No such documents were issued in this quarter.
No other issues have arisen that have required formal regulatory action.