Guidance on the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017 (IRR17) and other radiation protection legislation

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Part 1 Preliminary

This first section of the IRR17 is often skipped (but should not be). If is often useful to check out the actual worded definition of a term such as 'dose rate' .
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Part 2 General Principles and Procedures

Part 2 of the IRR17 covers the key principles of radiation protection including risk assessment, restriction of exposure, maintenance of engineering controls, dose limitation (dose limits) and contingency. In regulations (5)-(7) of IRR17 it introduces a new regime for informing HSE about work with ionising radiation namely notification (low risk), registration (medium risk) and consent (highest risk).
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Part 3 - Arrangements for the Management of Radiation Protection

Part 3 of IRR17 presents the arrangements for managing radiation protection. The requirements for consulting and appointing a Radiation Protection Adviser (RPA) are specified. Provision of suitable information, instruction and training is also covered. This part concludes with the duties required for co-operation between employers.
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Part 4 - Designated Areas

This part of IRR17 presents the requirements for designated areas (including specific requirements for controlled areas). Radiation Protection Supervisors (RPS), Local Rules and monitoring of areas is also included.
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Part 5 - Classification and Monitoring of Persons

This part of IRR17 deals with classified persons, dose assessment (including dosimetry, estimated doses and special entries), medical surveillance and overexposures). It is quite a complicated area of the regulations and needs close scrutiny to ensure all radiation employer duties are followed correctly.
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Part 6 - Arrangements for the control of radioactive substances, articles and equipment

Part 6 of IRR17 deals with radioactive materials. You will note there are some close links where with the requirements of environmental legislation. The regulations deal with leak testing, record keeping, storage and notifications (for spills, loss or theft). Regulation IRR17 (32) deals with critical examinations which will cover all sources of ionising radiation (i.e. radioactive substances, x-ray systems, accelerators etc).
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Part 7 - Duties of Employees and Miscellaneous

This final part of IRR17 deals with the duties of employees, the approval of dosimetry services and a whole host of important administrative arrangements (we will not detail these in this guidance, so consider seeking advice from a Radiation Protection Adviser if you are unsure).
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Resources

ARTICLES LIBRARY

Articles, Stories and further reading. Our PDF library section contains everything you'll ever need to know about radiation Protection.

A full Glossary of terms concentrating on radiation protection matters of interest to the RPA and small user.

Learn more about Radiation Protection with this set of multimedia presentations.

REGULATION GUIDANCE

TECHNICAL GUIDANCE

Browse our radiation protection technical guidance & data pages.

REGULATION RESOURCES

Links and documents containing all regulation and legislation forms, orders etc.

CAREERS GUIDANCE

A set of useful articles for anyone who fancies a career in Radiation Protection.