Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

What is PPE?

Personal protective equipment is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, electrical, heat, chemicals, biohazards, and airborne particulate matter.

Why PPE is Necessary?

Making the workplace safe includes providing instructions, procedures, training and supervision to encourage people to work safely and responsibly. Even where engineering controls and safe systems of work have been applied, some hazards might remain.

These include injuries to:

The lungs, etc from breathing in contaminated air
The head and feet, etc from falling materials
The eyes, etc from flying particles or splashes of corrosive liquids
The skin, etc from contact with corrosive materials
The body, etc from extremes of heat or cold

Maintenance

PPE must be properly looked after and stored when not in use, etc in a dry, clean cupboard. If it is reusable it must be cleaned and kept in good condition.

Think about:

Using the right replacement parts which match the original, etc respirator filters

Keeping replacement PPE available

Who is responsible for maintenance and how it is to be done

Having a supply of appropriate disposable suits which are useful for dirty jobs where laundry costs are high, etc for visitors who need protective clothing

Employees must make proper use of PPE and report its loss or destruction or any fault in it.

The Law

The current legislation which refers to the supply of personal protective equipment is the The Personal Protective Equipment Regulations 2016/425, which is enforced by the Personal Protective Equipment (Enforcement) Regulations 2018. HSE are the enforcing authority for the supply of PPE that is designed for use at work.

The current legislation which relates to the use of personal protective equipment is the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992. Other special regulations cover hazardous substances (including lead and asbestos), and also noise and radiation.