ASN Report 2017

228 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 GRAND EST The measures taken by the licensee in terms of occupational safety remain satisfactory on the whole. ASN does nevertheless observe, as in the preceding years, shortcomings in application of prevention measures, and that the approach of the licensee and its service providers to the risk analyses is too theoretical, leading to work conditions that do not always take the identified risks into account. On the subject more specifically of the electrical risk, ASN has also observed shortcomings in the regulatory obligations in the context of specific inspections and severe accident inquiries. The Soulaines-Dhuys waste repository and the Bure laboratory ASN considers that operation of the CSA repository is satisfactory, in line with the previous years. In 2017, Andra, the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency, continued deployment of the package inspection facility designed to provide the CSA site with more powerful means of checking the quality of the packages it receives. The commissioning authorisation application for this facility, planned for 2018, is currently being reviewed by examined ASN. In 2017, ASN continued the examination of the CSA periodic safety review file which is intended, among other things, to assess the safety of the facility with regard to the planned development of its activities over the next ten years. It will also detail the strategy for decommissioning, closing and monitoring the facility once it has stopped receiving waste. ASN considers that experiments and scientific work conducted by Andra in the underground laboratory at Bure continued in 2017 with a good standard of quality, comparable with that of the preceding years. After examining the safety options file for the Cigéo deep geological waste repository (see chapter 16 of this report), ASN issued its opinion on 11th January 2018. ASN considers that this file is documented and supported and represents significant progress with respect to the preceding files on which it gave an opinion; at this stage it expresses reservations concerning the disposal of the bituminous waste. Chooz A reactor undergoing decommissioning The work to decommission the Chooz A reactor under water has begun. With regard to the environment and nuclear safety, ASN considers that the decommissioning operations have been carried out satisfactorily. In the area of radiation protection, ASN observes the reappearance of deficiencies in the consideration of internal contamination risks, which have been the cause of 2 significant events. The licensee will have to increase its vigilance in 2018 with the continuation of the decommissioning worksites on which this risk is present. Lastly, ASN has started examining the reactor periodic safety review report which it received in September 2017. 1.2 Radiation protection in the medical field External radiotherapy and brachytherapy ASN inspected eight radiotherapy centres in 2017, two of which were commissioning a new accelerator. The inspections therefore focused more on risk management and analysis. These inspections targeted the functioning of certain centres, and in particular their computerised patient care management systems, which are sometimes pooled if the centres are structured as a national network. Despite the fact that the centres now have treatment quality and safety management systems, these inspections still revealed the need to continue improving management of the risks to which patients are exposed and the integration of experience feedback. The management system upgrades must also take better account of the development of new techniques and the replacement of equipment by putting in place an appropriate organisation, including prior to the planned changes. These changes have a significant impact on the needs for medical physics resources, which are highly mobilised in these new projects. Fluoroscopy-guided interventional practices ASN carried out 15 inspections in operating theatres and dedicated interventional radiology rooms (neurology, cardiology) in the region in 2017. Interventional techniques are growing fast, with significant implications for radiation protection, but the resources of the radiation protection services and the means available to the medical physics teams are generally insufficient to guarantee compliance with all the radiation protection requirements, except in the centres practising the most complex procedures, which involve the highest risks. Consequently, the observations expressed over the past years concerning the training of personnel in patient and worker radiation protection and the technical controls of the devices are often still pertinent. Furthermore, the embracing of risk management by the intervening teams must be further improved, particularly in the protection of practitioners: while the risk assessments are satisfactory, the job and work environment analyses do not give sufficient consideration to exposure of the extremities or the lens of the eye. Lastly, improvements are still required in the monitoring and analysis of doses delivered to patients. Nuclear medicine ASN inspected ten nuclear medicine departments in 2017. These inspections have shown that, save exceptions, the overall extent to which the centres take radiation protection requirements into account is good for patients and personnel alike. More specifically, the analyses of jobs and work environments taking into consideration all modes of exposure and the training of medical personnel in patient radiation protection are found to be satisfactory. The situation regarding the performance of technical controls and the implementation