ASN Report 2017

209 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 08  - Regional overview of nuclear safety and radiation protection AUVERGNE-RHÔNE-ALPES operated by EDF. The operations should be completed in 2020 at the latest. The examination of the facility’s periodic safety review file resulted in ASN imposing several improvement measures, particularly concerning occupational radiation protection, through its resolution CODEP-CLG-2017-034825 of 28th August 2017. In a letter dated 22nd June 2017, EDF declared the final shutdown of the BCOT by 30th June 2020 at the latest. The storage and maintenance operations shall be carried out on the Saint-Dizier maintenance base (Bamas). Transfer of the activities and the start of decommissioning are scheduled for 2018. ASN will be particularly attentive to these points. CERN accelerators and research centre (Geneva) Following the signing of an international agreement between France, Switzerland and CERN on 15th November 2010, ASN and the OFSP (Swiss Federal Office of Public Health) – the Swiss radiation protection oversight body – are contributing to the verification of the safety and radiation protection requirements applied by CERN. The joint actions concern transport, waste and radiation protection. In 2017, ASN and the OFSP thus continued the examination of the safety files submitted by CERN to demonstrate the safety of the new facilities, particularly the Medicis facility designed to produce radioisotopes for medical research purposes. The French and Swiss authorities conducted a joint inspection in 2017 on the theme of waste management. This inspection found the practices to be satisfactory. 1.2 Radiation protection in the medical field Radiotherapy and brachytherapy In 2017, ASN conducted inspections in 14 of the 22 radiotherapy centres of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and two inspections in brachytherapy centres. All the radiotherapy centres have taken organisational steps since 2009 to implement a quality assurance approach to improve the delivery of treatments to patients. These quality assurance systems are now increasingly used on a daily basis by all the personnel in the centres as part of a process for continuous improvement of quality of medical care. Consequently, since 2016 ASN has turned its inspections towards assessing the risk management capability of the centres. In 2017, ASN’s inspections focused in particular on the management of treatment safety and quality, preparation of treatments, control of patient positioning during treatment and implementation of the professional practices evaluation process. Particular attention was also devoted to the centres that implement innovative treatment technologies and those whose staffing levels are considered potentially vulnerable. The inspections reveal in particular that the centres must focus more attention on new techniques in their risk analyses and maintain efforts to increase experience feedback. The radiotherapy centres have all put in place a system for detecting significant events. In the majority of cases, these events concern a patient over one or a few treatment sessions and have no expected clinical consequences. ASN was notified of 19 events in 2017 and is making sure that the centres concerned draw the appropriate lessons from these events. Of these 19 significant events, one was provisionally rated level 2 and thirteen were rated level 1 on the ASN-SFRO scale, which comprises eight levels from 0 to 7. Fluoroscopy-guided interventional procedures In the light of the 23 inspections carried out in 2017, ASN recurrently observes large disparities between the services performing these procedures. Improvements are required in operating theatres in particular, where ASN has observed, among other things, deficiencies in personnel training and the wearing of dosimeters. With regard to interventional practices, the optimisation of doses delivered to patients and medical personnel is not yet sufficiently developed. The time medical physicists devote to this activity is still insufficient. Furthermore, the training of practitioners in good patient and worker radiation protection practices, and in the use of medical devices, must be continued. Nuclear medicine The six inspections carried out in 2017 reveal that radiation protection of workers, patients and the public is on the whole taken into consideration in the nuclear medicine facilities in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Improvements are nonetheless required in performing in-house technical radiation protection controls, in assessing the risk of worker internal contamination, in the management of radioactive effluents and the analysis of significant events. In 2017, ASN was notified of 12 significant radiation protection events. 1.3 Radiation protection in the industrial, research and veterinary sectors Industrial radiography In the industrial radiography sector in the Auvergne-Rhône- Alpes region, ASN considers that radiation protection is ensured relatively satisfactorily, be it in the agencies or during worksite operations. The fourteen inspections carried out in 2017 indicate that the main regulatory requirements concerning radiation protection of workers and the public are satisfied. The doses recorded by the workers are generally low in the case of operators working in bunkers, and seem to be well controlled on work sites.