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About compliance monitoring
Routine compliance monitoring (inspections) are carried out by enforcement officers appointed under the Radiation Safety Act 2016 (the Act).
In most cases, compliance monitoring is conducted through announced on-site inspections.
The primary goal of routine compliance monitoring is to give the Director confidence that source licence holders are meeting the radiation safety requirements at the location authorised by their licence. These requirements are defined in section 5 of the Act.
Schedule of routine compliance monitoring
The Director uses a risk-based approach to determine how often licence holders are monitored. This is outlined in Table 1 (Medical categories) and Table 2 (Non-medical categories) below, which provide guidance on:
- monitoring frequency by practice type
- examples of activities included in each compliance category.
This information can also be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet:
- Data set
Important notes
- The Director may impose more or less frequent monitoring as a condition of a source licence (under sections 19(2) and (3) of the Act).
- The Director may also conduct unannounced inspections at any time to assess compliance.
- The information in the tables below is for guidance purposes only and does not limit the Director’s authority.
- A monitoring year runs from 1 July to 30 June.
Medical categories: schedule of routine compliance monitoring
| Category code | Compliance monitoring category | Indication of practices or activities included in compliance monitoring categories | Indication of routine compliance monitoring schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | |||
| Medical 5A | Dental diagnosis (excluding computed tomography) | Dental diagnosis (X-ray only) | Once in every five monitoring years |
| 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 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 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 1A | Medical therapy | Medical therapy using irradiating apparatus and/or sealed sources (including low and high dose rate brachytherapy) | Once in every monitoring year |
Non-medical categories: schedule of routine compliance monitoring
| Category code | Compliance monitoring category | Indication of practices or activities included in compliance monitoring categories | Indication of routine compliance monitoring schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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, cabinet x-ray, bulk-flow and foreign body x-ray detection | 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) (includes fixed or portable x-ray only industrial gauges and analysers) | |||
| Use or storage of DEXA equipment for non-patients | |||
| Installation of irradiating apparatus | |||
| Non-medical 4A | Veterinary diagnosis (excluding the use of radioactive material) | Veterinary practice using fluoroscopy or irradiating apparatus that utilises computed tomography | Once in every four monitoring years |
| Veterinary diagnosis using plain radiography (X-ray only) | |||
| 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 | |||
| Manufacture of irradiating apparatus | |||
| 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 | |||
| 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 1B | Production of unsealed radioactive material using a cyclotron | Production of unsealed radioactive material using a cyclotron | Once in every monitoring year |
| 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 |
Compliance monitoring inspections completed
Table 3 sets out information on completed compliance monitoring visits by compliance monitoring category code. Compliance monitoring category codes are set out in Table 1 above.
| Compliance monitoring category code2 | Compliance monitoring visits - monitoring year ending 30 June 2023 | Compliance monitoring visits - monitoring year ending 30 June 2024 | Compliance monitoring visits - monitoring year ending 30 June 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medical 1A | 10 | 10 | 15 |
| Medical 2A | 103 | 33 | 34 |
| Medical 2B | 8 | 8 | 16 |
| Medical 4A | 27 | 117 | 67 |
| Medical 5A | 207 | 161 | 176 |
| Medical 5B | 5 | 9 | 3 |
| Non-medical 1A | 25 | 29 | 26 |
| Non-medical 1B | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Non-medical 2A | 25 | 15 | 26 |
| Non-medical 3A | 62 | 97 | 77 |
| Non-medical 4A | 111 | 109 | 115 |
| Non-medical 5A | 67 | 85 | 58 |
| Source licence not required3 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 651 | 675 | 615 |
Notes for Table 3
1. The totals set out in Table 3 include: unannounced visits, pre-authorisation visits, incident investigations and enforcement visits as well as routine scheduled compliance monitoring visits.
2. Compliance monitoring category codes have been used since 28 June 2023.
3. Section 15 of the Act sets out situations where a source licence is not required. Also, the Radiation Safety Regulations 2016 sets out the radiation sources that are exempt from the requirement to obtain a source licence (or any authorisation). However, section 8 of the Act requires that every person who deals with a radiation source must comply with the fundamental requirements of the Act (sections 9-12). On this basis, every person who deals with a radiation source may be subject to a compliance monitoring visit.
