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         Frisch-Peierls Memorandum
         UK Decides to Develop Nuclear Weapons
         Aldermaston Airfield Taken Over
         First UK Nuclear Device Successfully Detonated
         Blue Danube Nuclear Bomb Delivered to RAF
         Grapple Series Begins at Christmas Island
         UK/US Agreement
         Red Beard (tactical) Enters Service
         Yellow Sun MK.2 Enters Service
         Blue Steel Nuclear Missile Enters Service
         UK Mounts First Underground Nuclear Test (UGT)
         WE 177 Free-Fall Bomb Enters Service
         First Polaris Subarine - HMS Resolution - Operational
         UK Starts Chevaline Programme
         Pochin Report Recommends Improved Safety Procedures
         HELEN Laser Opened by HM the Queen
         Mogul-D Commissioned
         AWRE Becomes Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE)
         Government Announces AWE to be 'contractorized'
         Hunting-BRAE Ltd. Awarded Phase 2 Management Contract
         Cray C98D Super Computer Installed
         Plutonium Facility A90 Fully Operational
         North Ponds Water Management System Commissioned
         Fiftieth Anniversary of Opening AWRE Aldermaston
         AWE Management Ltd Win Management Contract
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Pochin Report Recommends Improved Safety Procedures

A key impetus to safety improvements was the report by Sir Edward Pochin into radiological health and safety at Aldermaston, which had been published in 1978.

A 'transfer tunnel' used for the safe movement of radioactive material, in the new plutonium processing facility A90.
A 'transfer tunnel' used for the safe movement of radioactive material, in the new plutonium processing facility A90.

Pochin was a world famous radiologist whose experience of nuclear weapons work went back to the US weapons tests in 1946 at Bikini, in which he had taken part. Pochin had been asked to carry out the work after routine monitoring indicated that three women working in Aldermaston's laundry appeared to have levels of plutonium in their lungs in excess of the level recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

Pochin found that, whilst emissions to the environment posed no hazard to the health of local people, the reliability of health protection measures for the workforce was affected due to inadequate staffing in the key areas of health physics and maintenance. He recommended that staff levels in these areas be increased 'as a matter of some urgency'.

He also found that whilst conditions in most buildings could be improved by simple methods such as improved ventilation, certain buildings presented 'particular problems, especially in containment of radioactivity and of ventilation'.

The Pochin Report led to major improvements in health and safety, materials handling and waste management. In July 1980, Pochin himself officially opened a Whole Body Monitor at Aldermaston - one of only seven in the country.

It was a significant addition to AWE's ability to keep a close watch on the health of its workforce, with up to 2,500 employees a year being routinely scanned.