The number of facilities conducting practices with sources constantly increases. The most developing area is medicine due to which the number of facilities annually is increasing by few tens. The distribution of facilities according to the type of practice is given in Table 1.

Table 1. Inspections carried out in 2009

 

Practice	Number of objects	Number of inspections	Number of inspections including radiological investigations
Medicine	1034	452	324
Veterinary	14	4	4
Research and education	21	12	8
Industry	72	50	34
Nuclear energy	2	5	2
Distribution, commissioning, repair, maintance	57	9	-
Others	156	80	44
In total	1356	612	416

Special inspections are carried out annually to implement the annual RSC work plan aiming to assess how radiation protection requirements are implemented in a specific area (ensuring physical security of sources, occupational exposure, etc.).
To assess how HCIs ensure quality control testing according to accompanying documents of digital imaging systems of X-ray machines, in 2009 special inspections were carried out in HCIs having modern X-ray machines using direct radiography (DR) or computed radiography (CR) X-ray imaging systems. Quality control testing was found to be carried out under the prescribed procedure and frequency according to the accompanying documents and in line with the legislation in force. The tests are carried out by highly qualified specialists, i.e., engineers of entities which have installed X-ray machines. Medical physicists are also increasingly involved in the daily quality assurance process.
The quality of medical services shall be continuously ensured, thus upon buying new X-ray diagnostic equipment it is very important to train HCI staff properly to operate it and develop their skills to fully use advantages of such equipment. This is vital to ensure optimization of patient doses. Therefore in 2009 special inspections were carried out in HCIs having installed new x-ray diagnostic machines. Staff training process was assessed during inspections. The staff was found to be trained properly, i.e., in line with procedures developed.
Plenty of attention was paid to the implementing of quality assurance programmes in computer tomography, mammography screening, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy and controlling how the quality process is ensured in these areas. Developed nuclear medicine quality manuals were evaluated and checks were made on how the developed quality manuals were updated in X-ray diagnostics, computer tomography and radiotherapy. HCIs were found to have established a quality management system which was further improved. Effectiveness of quality systems depends upon their monitoring and checking. Internal auditing is one of the most effective and wide spread quality system assessment methods. Therefore during scheduled inspections the following was checked: if a HCI had internal medical audit groups, if clinical
audits were carried out, if audit recommendations were implemented. It was found that internal medical audit groups functioned in all the inspected HCIs and clinical audits were carried out to assess radiological procedures.
Special attention was focused on licensees having practices involving sealed sources of I-III risk category. Assessments were made how radiation protection and physical safety of sources was ensured, wipe tests were done to assess radioactive contamination, and air pollution in working premises was checked. Inspectors also checked how such sealed sources were stored, used and if requirements of radiation protection were met. Surface contamination was found not to exceed permitted limits, and physical security of sources met legal requirements. The safe use of the source is also ensured by radiation protection trainings carried out. Plenty of attention was paid to testing of staff knowledge in the radiation protection area. The scheduled special inspections were used to assess how workers apply knowledge in practice. Workers dealing with sources were found to have a good level of knowledge in the radiation protection field.

 

 

Last update: 10 August 2010