Report a radiation incident

Radiation safety emergencies

For emergencies, call the Radiation Emergency team on 021 393 632.

The Radiation Emergency team is available 24 hours a day to provide immediate radiation protection advice and to deploy radiation safety expertise and monitoring equipment to the scene as necessary.

What is considered a radiation incident?

The radiation codes of practice specify what is considered as an incident.

For example, ORS C2, the Code of Safe Practice for Nuclear Medicine states that a reportable incident is an incident resulting in:

a dose limit being exceeded,
radioactive sources that are lost, missing or beyond regulatory control, or
a radiation dose to a patient that exceeds:
1. 1.5 times the intended dose (when the intended effective dose exceeds 5 mSv),
2. 2 times the intended dose (when the intended effective dose exceeds 0.5 mSv but is less than or equal to 5 mSv), or
3. 20 times the intended dose (when the intended dose is less than or equal to 0.5 mSv).

Why do radiation incidents need to be reported?

In some cases, this is a mandatory regulatory requirement (see below). In other cases, it is part of a ‘lessons learned’ campaign to help improve radiation safety.

Any person who has become aware of a radiation incident can submit a radiation incident notification.

Duties of source licence holders and consent holders

The Radiation Safety Act 2016 states that if the holder of a source licence or consent believes that an incident has occurred that has resulted in unintended loss or release of radiation, or overexposure of a person to radiation, they must notify the Director as soon as practical.