Preparing for Emergencies Guidance

Appendix 6 - Roles of organisations in planning for and responding to a radiological or nuclear incident

National Nuclear Emergency Planning and Response Guidance

This guidance assists local and national organisations in planning for and responding to nuclear emergencies.

Nuclear site-specific emergency plans

Operators of nuclear licenced sites which have the potential to cause an off- site nuclear emergency are legally required under the Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations 2019 (REPPR19), to work with the Local Authority to fulfil their duty to produce an off-site emergency plan.

This plan must include what initial advice is issued to the public in the event of an off-site nuclear emergency and what arrangements are in place to coordinate the provision of further advice, based on information about the emergency, such as monitoring data. This coordination of scientific advice is normally provided by a Scientific and Technical Advice Cell (STAC) in support of a Strategic Coordination Group chaired by the police. For more information see REPPIR19.

National Arrangements for Incidents involving Radioactivity (NAIR)

NAIR is coordinated across all 4 UK nations by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and provides access to radiation protection advice at the scene of an incident which involves, or is suspected to involve, radiation; where members of the public may be at risk; and where no other radiation expert is otherwise available. It is not intended to fulfil the requirements of users of radioactive material to have plans in place for the transport of radioactive material but can be called upon if plans cannot be put into action. It is also not intended for use for response to malicious incidents involving radiation or nuclear site emergencies.

NAIR can be activated by the emergency services by contacting the UKHSA RCE Radiation On-Call Officer on 01235 834590 (24/7). For more information see NAIR.

Emergency Reference Levels/Protective Action Advice

Planning for a radiation emergency includes deciding on what areas would be affected, to what extent and what the public should do to protect themselves. Underpinning these decisions are the Emergency Reference Levels (ERLs). For each protective action (sheltering, evacuation, stable iodine*) there is a lower and an upper ERL which is expressed as the amount of radiation dose that is needed to be averted by the protective action in order to justify the action.

All protective actions carry a risk, which must be balanced against the risk from the exposure to radiation. When planning for an emergency, it is the norm to use the lower ERL to determine the distance out to which a protective action is required, the lower ERL maximises this distance. If the emergency is more impacting than that which was planned for, any additional distance for protective actions would be initially based on the upper ERL and then re-assessed based on the circumstances faced by responders. ERLs are advised by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

For more information see ‘Public Health Protection in Radiation Emergencies’.

*Stable iodine is only used as a protective action in the event of an emergency involving an operational, or recently (within 90 days) shutdown nuclear reactor.

The Transportation of Defence Nuclear Material

The ‘Local Authority and emergency services information’ (LAESI) document provides information for the emergency services, local authorities and health authorities on contingency arrangements to be implemented in the unlikely event of an emergency during the transportation of ‘defence nuclear material’.