Audit experience in external individual monitoring services accreditation in Brazil

Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) has been carrying out an accreditation program for the External Individual Monitoring Services (named SMIE) for about 45.000 workers involved with ionizing radiation. One of this steps of this accreditation program is the audit to each SMIE. The main audit objective is to verify and to check organizational documentation, system performance test, technical personnel ability and training, quality assurance system procedures and records, essential equipment and facilities and reliability of dose reports. In order to avoid a different audit for each SMIE, effort were made to obtain a standard process. Two aspects were considered the most relevant ones: human resources training and audit procedures. To achieve the first one, a practical and theoretical course taking into account auditing needs was elaborated. As well as experience in one of the technical related areas, an important condition to be member of an audit team is to obtain satisfactory approval in one of the offered courses. In order to accomplish the second point, a set of documents was implemented such as an audit checklist, audit report models, and procedures and recommendations to audit. Up to February 1998, 12 accreditation audits were performed. The main points of this program as well as an assessment of its difficulties and success are reported in this work