A Guide to Respiratory Protective Equipment in the Workplace

Respiratory protective equipment protects employee’s health in the workplace and can even save lives when used correctly. Many employees have died at work because they have entered confined spaces either without RPE, using the incorrect RPE or wearing the RPE incorrectly.

There are significant health risks associated with breathing air contaminated by dust, mist, vapour, gas or fumes. If your work activities have the potential to result in harmful substances contaminating the air you'll want to make sure that you are suitably protected with the right respiratory protective equipment.

Assess and Control the Risks to Employees

Before providing respiratory protective equipment to your employees you need to assess the risk posed by any exposure to hazardous substances. If your work activities result in harmful substances contaminating the air then as part of your risk assessment you should use this to justify the reasons behind your decision to use respiratory protective equipment. Then take action to control the risks. You must ensure that all control measures are properly followed and not made ineffective by incorrect practices. 

Managing RPE in the Workplace

If you do decide that respiratory protective equipment should be one of your control measures then there are guidelines that you need to follow to keep your employees safe.  Employees also have a legal duty to cooperate with employers and to follow control measures, as justified by the risk assessment.

• You must select the correct RPE for the hazardous substance, the environment in which it is going to be used, the task that it will be used for and the employee wearing it. 
• It is best to give your employees a choice from several correctly specified types of RPE so that they can make a preferred choice.
• You must also train all employees on how to wear and use the RPE. 
• All employees wearing RPE should be supervised to ensure that they are using it in accordance with the training provided. 
• You also need to ensure that the RPE is maintained in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions. 
• Finally you must safely dispose of all damaged or used RPE.

Provide Face Fit Testing

Where RPE is used, it must be able to provide adequate protection for individual wearers but people come in many different shapes and sizes so it is unlikely that one particular type of respiratory protective equipment will fit everyone. If the RPE leaks then it is a poor fit, a respirator needs to fit the wearers face to be effective.

To use some types of RPE, such as FFP3 masks, all wearers must be ‘face fit tested’ to ensure that they can achieve a suitable fit for the mask, so that it operates at the required efficiency.

Maintenance of RPE is Essential 

Ensuring an effective system of maintenance for workplace RPE is essential for the equipment to continue to provide the degree of protection for which it is designed. This may include examining, cleaning, testing, repairing and replacing. You should always follow the manufacturer’s provided maintenance schedule to properly maintain your workplace RPE.

At Work and Wear Direct we supply a Box of 10 Premier FFP3 Valved Respirators with full face foam, excellent face fitting and an adjustable head strap. We also supply the 3M Bitrex Fit Testing Kit and the JSP Qualitative Face Fit Test Kit. Call us on 01702 553698 to place an order.