IRID: specifications for the Ionising Radiations Incident Database

Technologies that make use of ionising radiations are widespread. They provide many benefits but, as with other technologies, the use of ionising radiations carries with it the potential for incidents and accidents. Their severity can vary from the trivial to the fatal and may involve substantial economic penalties. In order to minimise the number of incidents and their consequences it is important that there is a mechanism to learn the lessons from those that do occur. To help pursue this objective the National Radiological Protection Board, the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency have established a national Ionising Radiations Incident Database (IRID) to cover radiation incidents in industry, medicine, research and teaching. This publication details the specifications for IRID and its methods of operation. All information in the database will be unattributable and names of persons or organisations will not be included. It is a personal computer based system with 24 fields to categorise an incident, including a text field that will provide a description of the incident giving the causes, consequences, follow-up actions and lessons to be learned. These descriptions will be used in subsequent publications to provide feedback to the users. (UK)