Safety culture

The purpose of a safety culture is to create the prerequisites for safe operations. Maintaining a good safety culture requires commitment by the personnel and management.

All personnel must be involved in creating and maintaining a good safety culture. It also requires commitment and visible leadership from the top management. The safety culture can be promoted through effective communication and by improving the competence of the personnel so that everyone can contribute to maintaining and improving safety in a responsible and conscious way. Instead of just preventing accidents, the purpose is to provide the workers with the prerequisites and support for safe operations. The management must offer the workers an opportunity to give feedback on radiation safety and see to it that the workers are actively involved in the development of the working methods for minimizing radiation exposure as much as reasonably possible.

A good safety culture is created and maintained by

• committing every worker to radiation safety at all organizational levels
• ensuring mutual understanding in all matters concerning radiation safety in the radiation user’s organization
• providing workers with the equipment and methods that enable safe work
• encouraging workers to develop and apply working methods and instructions that improve radiation safety
• ensuring that everyone in the organization is aware of and takes responsibility for radiation safety
• supporting open communication on radiation safety aspects both inside the organization and between the relevant parties
• encouraging a questioning and learning attitude instead of settling for the status quo
• offering ways for the organization to continuously develop and strengthen the safety culture.