The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) has published the latest national report on radiation safety incidents.
Based on 2022 incident data collected from radiation regulators across the country, ARPANSA's chief regulatory officer Jim Scott says the latest report highlights areas to improve radiation protection for people and the environment.
'From the 15 million diagnostic medical imaging procedures involving radiation there were 585 incidents reported in 2022,' Mr Scott said.
'These incidents tended to be triggered by human error - such as someone not following a procedure - but the incident can have a number of underlying causes. The benefit of this report is that it highlights the prevalence of these incidents and helps to identify what measures are effective at avoiding future incidents.'
ARPANSA manages the Australian Radiation Incident Register (ARIR). The ARIR is a national database that collates radiation incidents across all states, territories, and the Commonwealth.
This report is a summary of data submitted to the ARIR for incidents that occurred in 2022.
'Before incidents are reported through to ARPANSA, state and territory regulators may investigate and resolve safety concerns with their licence holders, which can contribute to delays in consolidated reporting through the ARIR,' Mr Scott said.
'ARPANSA is working with radiation regulators to try to reduce the time it takes for all jurisdictions to provide their reports and subsequently prepare this publication.'
Key report findings:
- There were a total of 718 incidents reported across jurisdictions and incident categories
- Most incidents were related to medical imaging, especially computed tomography (CT), plain film X-ray, and nuclear medicine
- Human error was the primary cause of most incidents, followed by equipment malfunction. For example, if there is a technical fault during the medical diagnostic treatment and the patient required another scan, this is considered an equipment malfunction.
