Nuclear emergency preparedness:

1

• Nuclear emergency preparedness
• A template for other industries?
• Dr Margaret Crichton
• People Factor Consultants Ltd
• Terry Kelly
• UKAEA

2
Overview

• Introduction to legislation (legal, moral,
  commercial)
• Nuclear industry process
• Nuclear industry preparedness
• Nuclear industry emergency response structures
• UK incident management structure
• Recent projects (1998-2008)
• Non-technical and command control skills
• Lessons learned
• Crisis management
• Exercise development

3
Introduction
4
Legislation

• Nuclear Installations Act, 1965
• Ionising Radiation Regulations, 1999
• Radiation Emergency Preparedness and Public
  Information Regulations, 2001(REPPIR)
• Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations,
  1999 (COMAH)

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Nuclear industry process
Inputs
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Nuclear industry preparedness template
P O L I C Y
Review
AUDIT
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Nuclear incident management structure simplified
example
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UK incident management structure
Incident occurs
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Co-operation
Co-operation between organisations is
fundamental to emergency preparedness. (UK
Resilience website)

• Other Agencies
• Department of Business, Enterprise, and
  Regulatory Reform (BERR)
• Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA)
• Health Safety Executive Nuclear Directorate
  (HSE ND)
• Local Authorities
• RADSAFE
• Nuclear Emergency Arrangements Forum (NEAF)
• Nuclear Emergency Planning Liaison Group (NEPLG)
• Within the industry cross-site meetings

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Nuclear Emergency Arrangements Forum (NEAF)

• Terms of reference
• Forum where Nuclear Installation Inspectorate
  (NII) and the operators meet to discuss planning,
  operations and regulatory issues on emergency
  arrangements
• Manages the three-year national exercise
  programme (Nuclear Emergency Exercise Programme)
  for the NII  for on-site and off-site exercises
  at civil nuclear licensed sites.

11
Nuclear Emergency Planning Liaison Group (NEPLG)

• Terms of reference
• National forum bringing together organisations
  with interests in off-site planning for an
  emergency at a civil nuclear licensed site
• Identifies, discusses and finds solutions to
  common problems and decides how these issues
  should be taken forward
• Agrees improvements in planning, procedure, and
  organisation that might form a framework of
  advice to nuclear operators, emergency services
  and other organisations that may be involved in a
  response to a nuclear emergency
• Sets up working groups as necessary to bring
  forward suggestions for improvements in planning,
  procedure and organisation

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Nuclear emergency preparedness Aim
People ...to provide skills development,
training, and exercising to individuals, teams,
and organisations in the UK nuclear industry for
effective emergency preparedness
Equipment ... to establish fully-operational
facilities (and back-up facilities) in order to
respond to and manage an emergency
Processes ...to ensure a simple, robust
conceptual scheme of incident management exists
and that all processes, plans, and procedures are
relevant, appropriate, and fit for purpose
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Recent projects (1998-2008)

• Non-technical and command skills development
  (Sponsor IMC)
• Lessons learned (Sponsor NEPLG Lessons
  Learned sub-group)
• Command control structure (Sponsor UKAEA)
• Training interventions and exercise development
  (Sponsor IMC RADSAFE)

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Non-technical and command skills development

• Taxonomy of non-technical skills required by
  nuclear power plant operation team members
• Team Situation Awareness
• Team Decision Making
• Team Co-operation
• Team Workload Management

• Taxonomy of command control skills for nuclear
  emergency response teams
• Decision making (Distributed and individual
  decision making)
• Communication
• Situation awareness
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Stress management

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Lessons learned

• Review of incidents (ranging from Kings Cross
  fire to Carlisle flooding) indicated that
  disasters are no respecters of sector boundaries
  and that lessons can be learned across sectors,
  e.g.
• Emergency preparedness
• Under-estimated reference accident
• Emergency response safety culture
• Command and control
• Public communication
• Welfare - emergency response personnel and
  members of the affected locality
• Training
• Resources and equipment

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Command control structures
Command control together address how numerous
people and parties distributed across various
locations can work as a single, purposeful
entity.
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Training interventions - exercises

• Exercise levels
• Level 1 NII assessed on-site only
• Level 2 NII assessed for REPPIR on-site and
  off-site
• Level 3 NII assessed for REPPIR on-site,
  off-site, and includes Government
• Major/minor Exercises
• Major exercises Annual attended by the
  regulator involve all agencies undertaken
  against an identified set of objectives assessed
  against performance indicators
• Minor exercises Three-year rolling programme
  not all agencies involved in the process are
  required to take part (simulation may be
  required) attended by the regulator by
  invitation but no requirement for attendance
• Types of exercise
• Seminar
• Desk-top/Tactical Decision Games
• Control post/drill
• Full-scale

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Exercise development
Developing a consistent approach to design,
planning and implementation of exercises in
multi-agency contexts 3-stages
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Summary

• Emergency preparedness in the nuclear industry
  is it a template for other industries?
• Focus on continuous improvement
• Identifying and learning lessons both in-sector
  and out-of-sector
• Sharing knowledge and experiences throughout the
  industry
• Co-operating and co-ordinating with other
  agencies
• Establishing agreed and accepted emergency
  response plan across sector
• SO...

YES
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• Thank you
• Dr Margaret Crichton
• People Factor Consultants Ltd
• Terry Kelly
• UKAEA