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 and are available also from the Internet at www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/. 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 enquire about matters covered by this report may contact HSE’s Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151-951-4103.
NII inspections were made on 1-3 February 2005. (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.
Acquisition by General Electric: NII has written to the licensee commenting on an interim version of a Safety Management Prospectus, which sets out how the licensee is organised with respect to safety. This version was discussed by the board of the licensee, and a revised version is awaited. NII has criticised the slowness with which the licensee is completing its arrangements for the control of organisational change.
Safety Representatives: Safety representatives are appointed from among the employees to perform a number of safety-related functions, which include making representations to the employer on matters affecting the health, safety, and welfare at work of the employees. The employer in turn has a duty to consult those representatives with regard to a number of health and safety matters. In this quarter, the Grove Centre introduced a new committee that has much improved this consultation.
Inspection with OCNS: A joint inspection was made with the Office of Civil Nuclear Security’s inspector for the site. This identified a number of areas of common interest.
Incidents: NII routinely inspects the licensee’s arrangements for the notification, recording, investigation and reporting of incidents. It also examines individual incidents, and looks further into those of greatest significance. Specific attention was given to an incident in January when smoke was seen coming from an effluent duct, the site’s control room was staffed, and the Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service was called out . It was concluded that there was no fire: an overheating drive belt on an effluent pump had generated smoke.
Meeting with the Environment Agency: While the team of Environment Agency regulators for the Grove Centre were on the site NII took the opportunity to discuss recent incidents and forthcoming sampling work with them.
As part of its regulation under the nuclear site licence NII issues formal regulatory documents, which include Consents, Approvals, Directions, and Licence Instruments. No such documents were issued during this quarter.
No other issues have arisen that have required formal regulatory action.
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.