The certification of laboratories of French nuclear facilities according to the ISO-CEI 17025 and/or 15189 standards and its mandatory approval by the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), after notification of the award issued by the French Nuclear Security and Radioprotection Institute IRSN), serve as a guarantee of quality in all techniques implemented within the framework of the monitoring of workers’ exposure to ionising radiation.
Methods
In the French nuclear facilities, the Clinical Biochemistry Laboratories are in charge of radio toxicological analyses which guarantee the monitoring of people who are faced with both internal and external contamination and as such it plays a vital role in the dosimetry of these contaminations. These alpha, beta and/or gamma radiotoxicological analyses are carried out in urines, feces, whole body and/or specific organs. The results of these analyses allow us to estimate the level of contamination rapidly and/or can yield highly accurate dosimetric calculations
Results
Certification according to the 17025 and/or 15189 standards delivers the first and objective technical security of accuracy in the methods implemented. A second level of security is the award issued by the IRSN which certifies that the analytical techniques performed are in accordance with the rules of the art in detecting pertinent levels of contamination. The third level is the ASN authorization that expressly authorizes the laboratory to perform the monitoring reviews.
Discussion
These three levels of control certify the adequacy of subsequent dosimetric calculations resulting from the analysis results implemented by the laboratory. These 3 levels of controls are regulatory. Therefore it is the legislation that certifies that the surveillance of workers exposed to ionizing radiation is performed under the best technical conditions possible by the laboratories and that the dosimetric calculations performed by doctors in the occupational health services provide a perfectly accurate picture of every employee's exposure.