UK Impact of the Proposed Dose Limit for the Lens of the Eye on the Nuclear Sector

Transcription

1 Health and and Safety Executive UK Impact of the Proposed Dose Limit for the Lens of the Eye on the Nuclear Sector Hani El-Sabbahy

2 Outline Approach to Impact Assessment; Stakeholder work; Affected workers; Changes of working practices; Approach to costs and benefits; Costs; Summary.

3 Understanding the Impact The dose limit represents a more than 7 fold reduction on the current dose limit; Eye dose is not widely or consistently measured in the UK at present; Practical issues with eye dosimetry e.g. position of dosimeters, quantity: Hp 07, 3,10; Impact of the proposed dose limit on the most affected sectors (nuclear and medical sectors) e.g. changes working practices? How much will it cost?

4 Overview of Approach to the Impact Assessment Research into the effectiveness of PPE Affected workers Implementation Issues Stakeholder Engagement Sector working groups Cost benefit analysis Sectors likely to be affected Changes in working practices needed

5 Stakeholder Work UK Occupational Exposures Working Group; More focused stakeholder work in the nuclear and medical sectors.

6 Aims of Stakeholder Work To identify groups of workers that may be affected; To identify whether any work would be prohibited; To identify what changes in working practices would be required and any potential problems associated with these; To identify and assess the costs associated with complying with the proposed dose limit.

7 Workers Affected Most affected workers constitute at least 1% of Nuclear workers in the UK Glovebox workers; Decommissioning workers; Pu/DU handling and QA; Alpha decommissioning; MOX fuel fabrication if this were to be undertaken in the UK in future; Quality Assurance on manufactured fuels; Recycling Uranium for fuel use in the future; Radiographers; and Workers involved AGR reactor vessel entry.

8 Changes in Working Practices Revising risk assessments to determine who should be monitored for eye dose; More face to face medicals (extended medicals?); More monitoring and recording; 5 year averaging; More emphasis on dose to the lens of the eye in equipment design; Extra shielding and PPE.

9 Costs Worst case scenario assumed; Status quo forms the baseline; Numbers affected estimated from available data eg Information from stakeholders, UK dose database; Changes to working practices identified by stakeholders; Requirements costed per unit; Costs represent a best guess; Currently consulting on initial costs.

10 Approach to Benefits Reduction in number of cases of ill health; Ill health appraisal value (Cost of ill health to the economy); Currently unclear how many cases of opacity will be avoided.

11 One-off Costs Additional training and raising awareness to a large number of low exposure staff estimated 0.29 million ( 0,36 million); Dosimetry Service (ADS) approvals for measuring dose to the lens of the eye estimated 73,000 ( ); Revising risk assessments estimated 65,000 ( ); Additional shielding in areas with non-uniform fields estimated 54,000 ( ); Raising awareness for a low number of workers with higher exposure estimated 14,000. ( );

12 Ongoing Costs Cost of contracting out work estimated 2 million ( 2,47 million) per year; Additional face to face medicals estimated 326,000 ( ) per year; Updating passbooks with dose to the lens of the eye for Outside Workers estimated 56,000 ( ) per year; Applications to average the dose over five years estimated 36,000 ( ) per year; Monitoring costs for non-classified workers estimated 11,000 ( ) per year; Training for higher exposure workers estimated 9,000 ( ) per year.

13 Total Costs One off costs 0.5 million ( 0,62 million); Ongoing cost 2.5 million ( 3,09 million) per year; Ongoing costs over 30 years 44 million ( 54 million).

14 Summary Approach to Impact Assessment; Stakeholder work; Affected workers; Changes of working practices; Approach to costs and benefits; Costs.

15 Health and and Safety Executive Questions?