Routine compliance monitoring is scheduled by the Director for Radiation Safety (the Director) when a source licence is granted, renewed or varied. Compliance monitoring is conducted by enforcement officers appointed under the Radiation Safety Act 2016 (the Act). In most cases, compliance monitoring is conducted using announced compliance monitoring visits (on-site inspections).
The principal objective of routine compliance monitoring is to provide the Director with a high level of assurance that source licence holders are meeting the radiation safety requirements at the location or place from which the management, control and possession of radiation sources is authorised by the source licence. The radiation safety requirements are set out in section 5 (Interpretation) of the Act.
Schedule of routine compliance monitoring
Table 1 below indicates how the Director schedules routine compliance monitoring for source licence holders.
The scheduling information provided in Table 1 does not prevent the Director from imposing higher or lower levels of compliance monitoring as a condition of a source licence as set out in sections 19(2) and (3) of the Act.
The scheduling information provided in Table 1 does not prevent the Director from conducting unannounced compliance monitoring for the purposes of monitoring compliance with the radiation safety requirements.
The indication of compliance monitoring scheduling and the indication of practices or activities included in compliance monitoring categories Table 1 is provided for guidance purposes only. A monitoring year is 1 July to 30 June.
| Category code | Compliance monitoring category | Indication of practices or activities included in compliance monitoring categories | Indication of routine compliance monitoring schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medical 1A | Medical therapy | Medical therapy using irradiating apparatus | Once in every monitoring year |
| Medical 2A | Medical diagnosis (excluding the use of radioactive material) | Radiology using irradiating apparatus | Once in every two monitoring years |
| Image guided medical procedures using irradiating apparatus | |||
| Medical 2B | Nuclear medicine | Medical therapy using unsealed radioactive material | Once in every two monitoring years |
| Medical imaging (diagnosis or guided procedures) using unsealed radioactive material | |||
| Medical 4A | Medical diagnosis (excluding interventional radiology, interventional cardiology, computed tomography, and the use of radioactive material) or dental diagnosis | Medical diagnosis using plain radiography (X-ray only) | Once in every four monitoring years |
| Breast screening | |||
| General practice | |||
| Chiropractic | |||
| Dental diagnosis using CBCT | |||
| Medical 5A | Dental diagnosis (excluding computed tomography) | Dental diagnosis (X-ray only). | Once in every five monitoring years |
| Medical 5B | Sentinel node biopsy, low-dose-rate brachytherapy, and bone densitometry | Sentinel node biopsy | Once in every five monitoring years |
| Low-dose-rate brachytherapy | |||
| Bone densitometry | |||
| Non-medical 1A | Industrial radiography, the practice of X-ray irradiation, and any non-medical practice involving high-activity radioactive material | Industrial radiography using radioactive material | Once in every monitoring year |
| X-ray irradiation | |||
| Blood irradiation | |||
| Research irradiation | |||
| Any other use or manufacture (other than by cyclotron) of high-activity radioactive material | |||
| Non-medical 1B | Production of unsealed radioactive material using a cyclotron | Production of unsealed radioactive material using a cyclotron. | Once in every monitoring year |
| Non-medical 2A | Any non-medical practice involving irradiating apparatus or low activity radioactive material, or both (excluding industrial radiography using radioactive material, X-ray irradiation, and the production of unsealed radioactive material using a cyclotron) | Industrial radiography using X-ray only | Once in every two monitoring years |
| Well-logging | |||
| Veterinary practice using unsealed radioactive material | |||
| Veterinary practice using fluoroscopy or irradiating apparatus that utilises computed tomography | |||
| Use of radioactive tracers | |||
| Non-medical use of a linear accelerator (LINAC) | |||
| Any other practice, activity or manufacture (other than by cyclotron) of low-activity unsealed radioactive material (including for testing, research, or teaching). | |||
| Non-medical 3A | Any non-medical practice involving irradiating apparatus or low activity radioactive material that is sealed radioactive material, or both (excluding industrial radiography, X-ray irradiation, the production of unsealed radioactive material using a cyclotron, veterinary diagnosis or practice, well logging, and the use of particle accelerators) | Human imaging for non-medical purposes | Once in every three monitoring years |
| Use or storage of fixed nuclear gauges that contain sealed radioactive material | |||
| Use or storage of portable nuclear gauges that contain sealed radioactive material | |||
| Use or storage of radioluminescent material and equipment containing radioluminescent material | |||
| Use or storage of gaseous tritium light sources | |||
| Use or storage of low activity sources for installation and servicing, medical physics purposes and static elimination | |||
| Use of pulse-generated portable security inspection systems | |||
| Non-medical 4A | Veterinary diagnosis (excluding the use of radioactive material) | Veterinary diagnosis using plain radiography (X-ray only). | Once in every four monitoring years |
| Non-medical 5A | Any non-medical practice involving irradiating apparatus (excluding industrial radiography, X-ray irradiation, veterinary diagnosis or practice, well logging, the use of particle accelerators, human imaging, and the use of pulse-generated portable security inspection systems) | X-ray baggage inspection | Once in every five monitoring years |
| Use or storage of laboratory and precious metal analysis equipment (X-ray only) | |||
| Use or storage of industrial measurement and monitoring equipment (X-ray only) | |||
| Use or storage of DEXA equipment for non-patients | |||
| Installation of irradiating apparatus |
Reports on routine compliance monitoring
Information on routine compliance monitoring is reported in Table 2 below. Table 2 sets out information by compliance monitoring category code. Full details on compliance monitoring category codes are set out in Table 1 above.
| Compliance monitoring category code (category prior to 28 June 2023) | Routine compliance monitoring visits conducted in the monitoring year ending on 30 June 2023 |
|---|---|
| Medical 1A (1) | 10 |
| Medical 2A (2) | 103 |
| Medical 2B (3) | 8 |
| Medical 4A (4) | 27 |
| Medical 5A (5) | 207 |
| Medical 5B (6) | 5 |
| Non-medical 1A (1) | 25 |
| Non-medical 1B (2) | 1 |
| Non-medical 2A (3) | 25 |
| Non-medical 3A (4) | 62 |
| Non-medical 4A (5) | 111 |
| Non-medical 5A (6) | 67 |
| Total | 651 |