PART 1 | Citation and commencement |
| 1. These Regulations are the Radiation Protection (Ionising Radiation) Regulations 2023 and come into operation on 20 February 2023. |
2. In these Regulations —| “absorbed dose” means the amount of energy, expressed in gray, imparted to matter by ionising radiation per unit mass of the irradiated material at the place of interest; |
| “accident” means any unintended event, including operating errors, equipment failures and other mishaps, the consequences of potential consequences of which are not negligible from the point of view of protection and safety; |
| “allied health professional” has the meaning given by section 2 of the Allied Health Professions Act 2011; |
| “applicant” means a person who is applying for an approval, a licence or registration, as the case may be; |
| “approved” means approved in writing by the Director‑General; |
| “approved person” means a person who has been granted approval by the Director‑General under section 12, 13 or 15 of the Act; |
| “becquerel” means the unit of radioactivity defined as one disintegration per second, and may be designated by the symbol “Bq”; |
| “bulk”, in relation to amounts of radioactive substances, means an amount of more than one tonne; |
| “caregiver” or “comforter” means a person who willingly and voluntarily helps (other than in their occupation) in the care, support or comfort of patients undergoing radiological procedures for medical diagnosis or medical treatment; |
“committed effective dose” means the time integral of the effective dose rate following an intake of radioactive material into the body based on —| (a) | the time period that has elapsed after the intake; and | | (b) | if the time that has elapsed after the intake is not known, the time period is —| (i) | in the case of an intake by an individual of 18 years of age or older, presumed to be 50 years; and | | (ii) | in the case of an intake by an individual below 18 years of age, presumed to be a period ending on the individual’s attainment of 70 years of age; |
|
|
| “consumer product” means a device or manufactured product into which radionuclides have deliberately been incorporated or produced by activation, or which generates ionising radiation, and which may be sold, supplied or otherwise made available to members of the public without a licence or an approval under the Act or any of its regulations after sale; |
| “effective dose” means the sum of the weighted equivalent doses in all tissues and organs of the human body, and is expressed in sievert; |
“emergency” means a non‑routine situation that necessitates prompt action, primarily to mitigate a hazard or adverse consequences for human health and safety, quality of life, property or the environment, and includes but is not limited to —| (a) | nuclear or radiological emergencies and conventional emergencies such as fires, release of hazardous chemicals or storms; and | | (b) | situations for which prompt action is warranted to mitigate the effects of a perceived hazard; |
|
“emergency worker” means any individual who is engaged in or is employed for part or whole of the individual’s working time to perform duties in response to an emergency and —| (a) | includes an individual employed by the licensees and personnel of response organisations, such as police officers, firefighters, medical personnel, and drivers and crews of evacuation vehicles; and | | (b) | the individual may or may not be designated in advance of an emergency and is not necessarily a radiation worker prior to the emergency; |
|
| “employee”, in relation to a licensee, has the meaning given to it by section 10(5) of the Act; |
| “equivalent dose” means the sum of the product of the absorbed dose in gray and the radiation weighting factor for all the different types of radiation incident on a tissue or an organ, and is expressed in sievert; |
“full blood examination” means —| (a) | an estimation of the haemoglobin in grams per 100 millilitres of whole blood; | | (b) | an estimation of the number of red blood cells present per cubic millimetre of whole blood; | | (c) | an estimation of the number of white blood cells present per cubic millimetre of whole blood; | | (d) | a differential white cell count; | | (e) | a platelet count; | | (f) | a search for abnormal cells and description of any seen; and | | (g) | any other blood examination as the Director‑General may from time to time require; |
|
| “gigabecquerel” means one thousand million becquerels and may be designated by the symbol “GBq”; |
| “gray” means the unit of absorbed dose and is equal to one joule per kilogramme of irradiated material and may be designated by the symbol “Gy”; |
| “healthcare professional” includes a medical practitioner, a dentist, a nurse, a pharmacist, an allied health professional and any other individual who is licensed to provide any other healthcare service in Singapore; |
“incident” means any unintended event, including —| (a) | any operating error, equipment failure, initiating event, accident precursor, near miss or other mishap; or | | (b) | any unauthorised act, malicious or non‑malicious, |
| the consequences or potential consequences of which are not negligible from the point of view of protection and safety; |
|
| “installation” means the area of radiation hazard under the administrative control of the person possessing the source of radiation; |
| “institutional review board” means a board or committee appointed to conduct an ethics review of proposed human biomedical research or a clinical trial for human subjects; |
| “ionisation chamber smoke detector” means a detector, using radioactive materials, sensitive to combustion products capable of affecting ionisation currents within the detector; |
| “IR1 licence” means a licence to manufacture, possess for sale or deal in irradiating apparatus or radioactive materials; |
| “IR2 licence” means a licence to keep, possess for use (other than sale) or use irradiating apparatus or radioactive materials; |
| “IR3 licence” means a licence to handle and transport radioactive materials; |
| “IR4A licence” means a licence to import a consignment of irradiating apparatus; |
| “IR4B licence” means a licence to export a consignment of irradiating apparatus; |
| “IR5A licence” means a licence to import a consignment of radioactive materials; |
| “IR5B licence” means a licence to export a consignment of radioactive materials; |
| “IR5C licence” means a licence to transit or tranship a consignment of nuclear material as defined in section 28(1) of the Act; |
“irradiating apparatus” means —| (a) | any apparatus that is capable of producing ionising radiation; or | | (b) | any component of or accessory to an apparatus described in paragraph (a); |
|
| “kilobecquerel” means one thousand becquerels and may be designated by the symbol “kBq”; |
| “licensee” means a person who holds a licence under the Act; |
“medical exposure” means any exposure incurred by —| (a) | a patient for the purposes of medical or dental diagnosis or treatment; | | (b) | a caregiver or comforter; and | | (c) | a volunteer as part of human biomedical research; |
|
| “medical physicist” means a healthcare worker with educational qualifications and training in the concepts and techniques of applying physics in medicine; |
| “medical radiation technologist” means a healthcare professional, with a specialist education and training in medical radiation technology, competent to carry out radiological procedures, on delegation from the radiological medical practitioner, in one or more of the specialities of medical radiation technology; |
| “megabecquerel” means one million becquerels and may be designated by the symbol “MBq”; |
| “microsievert” means one millionth part of a sievert and may be designated by the symbol “µSv”; |
| “millisievert” means one thousandth part of a sievert and may be designated by the symbol “mSv”; |
| “moderate”, in relation to amounts of radioactive substances, means an amount not more than one tonne; |
| “non‑single station ionisation chamber smoke detector” means an ionisation chamber smoke detector which is intended for, and capable of, connection to one or more other smoke detector units as part of a fire detection system with a centrally located alarm and power supply unit; |
| “occupational exposure” means any exposure of workers incurred in the course of their work; |
“optimisation”, in relation to protection and safety —| (a) | for medical exposures of patients, means the management of the radiation dose commensurate with the medical purpose; and | | (b) | for purposes not mentioned in paragraph (a), means the process of determining the level of protection and safety that would result in the magnitude of individual doses, the number of individuals (workers and members of the public) subject to exposure and the likelihood of exposure being as low as reasonably achievable, economic and social factors being taken into account; |
|
| “pre‑disposal management of radioactive waste” means any waste management steps carried out prior to disposal, such as pre‑treatment, treatment, conditioning, storage or transport activities; |
| “primary radiation” means radiation coming directly from any radioactive substances or irradiating apparatus; |
| “public exposure” means exposure incurred by members of the public due to any radiation source, excluding occupational exposure or medical exposure; |
“public sector agency” means any of the following:| (a) | a ministry or department of the Government; | | (b) | a body corporate established by a public Act for the purposes of a public function; | | (c) | an organ of state, excluding a court; |
|
| “radiation” or “ionising radiation” means energy that is propagated in the form of X‑rays, gamma‑rays, alpha and beta particles, high speed electrons, neutrons, protons and other nuclear particles, but does not include energy in the form of sound and radiowaves, or visible, infra‑red, or ultra‑violet light; |
| “radiation dose” means an effective dose or equivalent dose received by an individual; |
| “radiation hazard” means the danger to the health of an individual arising from exposure to ionising radiation, whether due to external radiation or to radiation from radioactive substances within the body; |
| “radiation level” means the corresponding equivalent dose rate; |
| “radiation source” or “source” means anything that may cause radiation exposure, such as by emitting ionising radiation or releasing radioactive substances or materials; |
| “radiation weighting factor” means a dimensionless factor, selected for the type and energy of radiation incident on the body or from sources within the body, by which the absorbed dose in a tissue or an organ is weighted to give the equivalent dose; |
“radiation work” means work which —| (a) | involves the handling of any radioactive substance; or | | (b) | involves the operation of any irradiating apparatus; |
|
| “radiation worker” means any individual who is engaged in or is employed for part or whole of the individual’s working time to do radiation work; |
| “radiological medical practitioner” means a healthcare professional with specialist educational qualifications and training in the medical uses of radiation, who is competent to perform independently or to oversee procedures involving medical exposure in a given specialty; |
| “sealed source” means any radioactive material that is firmly bonded within material or sealed in a capsule of adequate mechanical strength so as to prevent the escape of any part of the radioactive material under foreseeable conditions of use and wear but so designed as to allow the emission of ionising radiation for use as required; |
| “sievert” means the unit of equivalent dose or effective dose and may be designated by the symbol “Sv”; |
| “single station ionisation chamber smoke detector” means a self‑contained ionisation chamber smoke detector in which the alarm is incorporated in the ionisation chamber smoke detector itself and which does not need to be linked to any other external fire detection or alarm system in order to function; |
| “stochastic effects” means those effects for which the probability of an effect occurring, regarded as a function of dose, is without threshold; |
| “tissue weighting factor” means the proportion of the risk arising from stochastic effects resulting from tissue to the total risk, when the whole body is irradiated uniformly; |
| “unsealed source” means any radioactive material which is not a sealed source; |
| “worker” includes a radiation worker. |
|
|
