Refresher Training
Refresher training to maintain the efficiency of staff is best carried out by team practices and co-ordinated exercises described in the following sections. However, the introduction of changes in procedures or in equipment will require adequate retraining to be provided for the personnel involved.
13.3 Practices, Drills and Exercises
It is most unlikely that the Contingency Plan will need to be implemented in earnest during the lifetime of the Daya Bay reactors. However, it is vital that the plan should work well if it is called upon. For this reason, it is expedient that there should be as much compatibility as possible between the routine duties of staff and their emergency duties. In this way the time allotted to training can be minimised, and the time that is available can be mainly used for co-ordinated exercises of the whole emergency organisation.
Types of Exercises
Exercises may vary considerably in scale and extent, but four basic levels may be identified as follows:
(i)
Table-top Exercises
In this type of exercise, participants from all, or part, of the emergency organisation meet and are presented with a hypothetical emergency situation. The participants discuss the problems, the actions that they would implement, and the resources that they would call upon. They then identify any problems that would arise in meeting the situation under the current Contingency Plan. No actual operations take place in the field. This type of exercise will only involve the more senior members of the emergency organisation and representatives of the supporting organisations. It is a relatively inexpensive way of helping participants to understand their functions and of establishing communciations between the organisations and individuals involved, as well as identifying weaknesses in the Contingency Plan.
(ii)
Operational Drills of Sections of the Organisation
Sections of the emergency organisation may be exercised separately. In particular it would be advisable to carry out frequent exercises with the district survey teams between full-scale exercises of the whole organisation. This will enable the survey team members to practise radio-communication procedures, map-reading and identification of survey routes and pre-determined survey points.
(iii)
Communication Exercises
It is important to exercise the alerting procedure to check that sufficient emergency team personnel can be contacted and mustered, and that communication can be established rapidly with the supporting organisations. Communication exercises will normally be preceded by information a few weeks in advance detailing an exercise code-word so that participants will be aware of the action expected of them. However, the exact timing of the exercise should not be released in advance. Communication is normally by telephone, and a record should be kept of the success of individual calls and of any problems in establishing communication with supporting organisations. This type of exercise will include the testing of cascade call-out procedures.
(iv)
Full-scale Operational Exercises
Exercises involving all organisations with a major involvement in the Contingency Plan should be held at regular
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