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GE Healthcare Ltd, Grove Centre Site, Amersham

Quarterly report for 1 January - 31 March 2008

Contents

Foreword

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 Grove Centre. These reports are distributed quarterly and are available also from the Internet at www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend some LLC meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there by members of the LLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE’s Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951-3484/3290.

Nuclear Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS

Inspections

NII inspections were made on 27 - 28 February 2008. 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.

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Routine matters

The NII site inspector for GE Healthcare sites has changed. From 1 January 2008 Mr Snelson has taken over from Mr Kemp.

Inspections at Site

Inspections are undertaken at site as part of the process for monitoring compliance with:

  1. the conditions attached by HSE/NII to the nuclear site licence;
  2. the Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 and
  3. regulations made under the HSWA for example the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

This entails monitoring licensee’s actions on the site in relation to incidents, operations, maintenance, projects, modifications, safety case changes and any other matters which may affect safety. The licensees/operators are required to make and implement adequate arrangements under the conditions attached to the licence in order to ensure legal compliance. Inspections seek to judge both the adequacy of these arrangements and their implementation. In this period routine inspections of the Grove Centre covered:

  1. The licensee’s corporate organisation for Health and Safety.
  2. Arrangements for designing and installing safety systems, which refer respectively to some of our discussions at Amersham and Harwell. For example, Amersham safety systems were discussed at a meeting held on the GE Harwell site on 22 - 23 January 2008.

Issues arising from these and previous inspections are being pursued.

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Non-routine matters

Licensees are required to have arrangements to respond to non-routine matters and events. NII inspectors judge the adequacy of the licensee’s/operators response including actions taken to implement any necessary improvements. There are no items of particular note during the current reporting period

Corporate

Handover of duties from Mr Kemp to the new NII Site Inspector, Mr Snelson, has taken place during meetings and discussion at Amersham and Harwell. Topics included an overview of GE organisation and Grove Centre site facilities followed by an introduction to the site director’s immediate management team and their functions.

Grove Centre

Handover to the new NII site inspector has included:

  1. Introduction and familiarisation of GE Healthcare Amersham organisational structure, systems, site operations and geographical layout of facilities and plant.
  2. Introduction of the organisation structure and the role of Nuclear Assurance and EHS organisation, with an introduction to the relevant management teams and overview of functions.
  3. Introduction to the Waste and Decommissioning organisation, the Manufacturing organisation and the Engineering organisation and their structures with introductions to the relevant management teams and overview of their functions.

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Regulatory activities

Under Health and Safety legislation NII Site Inspectors, and other HSE Inspectors, may issue formal documents to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Under nuclear site licence conditions HSE/NII issues regulatory documents, which either permission an activity or requires some form of action to be taken; these are collectively termed Licence Instruments (LIs). In addition inspectors may issue enforcement notices to secure improvements to safety. No such documents were issued in this quarter.

No other issues have arisen that have required formal regulatory action.