UK nuclear regulator confirms increase in nuclear site health and safety incidents

In his latest annual report on Great Britain’s nuclear industry (134-page PDF/2.2MB), the chief nuclear inspector (CNI) has highlighted that while the proportion of those incidents which had the potential to have more serious consequences remains unchanged at 20%, the overall number of reportable incidents under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) has increased in 2023-24 compared to the previous year and the pre-Covid average. This happened despite targeted interventions in priority areas including lifting operations, control of work at height, workplace transport, health hazards and electrical safety. All of these are identified as “persistent areas of attention” for the ONR.

The ONR’s mission is to protect society by securing safe nuclear operations, and its supervisory powers include oversight of health and safety at Great Britain’s nuclear licensed sites. While the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the main government body responsible for the UK’s national workplace health and safety regulation, the ONR has developed and implemented its own regulatory strategy for NSHS, aligned under four main pillars.

Those pillars include reinforcing the regulator’s NSHS capability, risk profiling, reviewing guidance and proactive industry engagement. Considerable emphasis is placed on the benefits of risk profiling practices, for both the regulator and dutyholders in driving improvements, enabling the ONR to target interventions and dutyholders to ensure more proactive and preventative identification of risk, particularly where information is shared across the industry.

The ONR’s report places particular emphasis on its expectations for proactive industry engagement and collaboration.  The regulator expects to engage with dutyholders across a number of so-called “themes”, which it noted as key to driving improvements in NSHS. These themes include board level commitment to take action to make NSHS improvements, effective use of risk profiling covering both safety and health, adoption of recognised safety performance indicators, adequacy of incident investigations and effective discharge of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) roles and duties.

“We have seen increasing levels of construction and decommissioning activity on nuclear licensed sites in recent years. It is also now a legal requirement for RIDDOR reportable incidents to be reported direct to the ONR via their duty holder portal. It is not surprising therefore to read that the overall number of RIDDOR reports has increased in the last year,” said Phil Newton, a health and safety expert at Pinsent Masons.

“However, the ONR has now responded with a clearly developed strategy for ensuring there will be targeted interventions and improvements in NSHS. Dutyholders should take stock on progress to date against these themes so they are prepared for when the ONR inevitably come calling,” he said.