The 2013 European Directive on protection against ionising radiation required the UK to introduce new ionising radiation and radioactive substances legislation. This process is now complete, and the changes are summarised below.

The regulations designed to protect workers and those undergoing medical exposures were replaced, and so employers should now be meeting the requirements of the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017, the Ionising Radiations (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2017.

In England and Wales, the environmental permitting regulations were amended by the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2018, which have implications for High Activity Sealed Source (HASS) users and those working with Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM). In Scotland the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 was replaced by the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018.

More recently, the radiation emergency preparedness and public information regulations were replaced by the Radiation Emergency Preparedness and Public Information Regulations 2019 and the carriage of dangerous goods regulations further amended by the Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment (Amendment) Regulations 2019. The latter put in place more stringent requirements for emergency arrangements relating to radioactive substances in transport.

To help you with all these recent changes, contact us.