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December 11, 2014

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Why can’t we get respiratory protection right?

In a recent blog HSL’s John Saunders talked about the role of local exhaust ventilation (LEV) in protecting workers’ health. This blog continues the theme of reducing inhalation exposure with the use of respiratory protection equipment (RPE).

RPE isn’t the first choice in the hierarchy of control. In fact it appears well down the ladder of options to consider. But in many workplaces RPE is used as part of a control strategy. With effective use of suitable RPE, adequate control of exposure is possible. But as the recent figures on ill health caused by inhalation exposure published by HSE show, we tend not to be getting respiratory protection right. Why?

After all, there is a wide choice of very good RPE on the market, so where are we going wrong?

Effective use of RPE involves one very complex and much overlooked component – the wearer!

Anyone who has worn a respirator knows that they are not comfy. They increase breathing burden, interfere with communications, impair vision, make you sweat and they can be difficult to fit correctly. It’s no surprise that wearers may choose to not wear respirators for short duration tasks, wear them incorrectly to reduce breathing burden or heat burden or remove them in contaminated areas for communication or clarity of vision. Each of these misuses can lead to increased inhalation exposure, which may eventually cause the wearer to become one of the HSE statistics. With the often long latency of illness related to inhalation exposure, it is difficult get across the health message due to RPE misuse. I once heard long latency health effects described as being a ‘slow accident’ – which I thought was a useful description.

As the demand for respiratory protection in sectors such as healthcare expands, the demand for more wearable respirators grows. The challenge to RPE manufacturers is to design and engineer RPE that is both effective and more wearable.

Several initiatives have provided useful tools to aid the RPE selection – the updated HSE practical guidance on RPE, the Clean Air? –Take Care! campaign and the HSE RPE pocket card, designed specifically for wearers, are excellent resources. And more recently the online RPE Selector Tool is certainly worth a visit.

The legal requirement for fit testing should keep the wearer in focus. With the aid of the Fit2Fit competency scheme, fit testing is helping to ensure that respirators are more suitable for wearers. RPE manufacturers have helped by offering more sizes of masks than ever before. One of the most common reasons why wearers fail a fit test (other than the mask not being suitable for the wearer), is the inability of the wearer to don the mask correctly. This is so often the case with disposable filtering facepieces – which while being the simplest form of RPE – are the hardest to fit correctly. Fit testing provides an ideal opportunity for essential wearer training.

So, if we are to get RPE right we need to make use of the resources available, get wearers fit tested, and ensure they are adequately trained. This way we may then prevent adding further to the HSE statistics.

Mike Clayton is the PPE Technical Team Lead at the Health and Safety Laboratory, the Lead Assessor within the Fit2Fit scheme and is the current President of the International Society for Respiratory Protection.

What makes us susceptible to burnout?

In this episode  of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.

We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.

stress

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Vince Butler
Vince Butler
9 years ago

Excellent article, though about 40 years late! This topic was a big part of my work life in the 70’s, as exposure to respirable coal dust (pneumoconiosis) and respirable crystalline silica (silicosis) were very common diseases killing thousands and continue to do so. Thames Valley IOSH branch covered the topic for the November ’14 meeting with “FFRED the Head” starring in the presentation from JSP. In my humble opinion, “FFRED the Head” is one of the very best visual training aids I have ever seen, I think it’s a HSL creation? Anyone exposed to respirable or breathable dusts or chemicals… Read more »

Matthew Judson
Matthew Judson
9 years ago
Reply to  Vince Butler

Vince, yes FFRED is an HSL creation. I do agree with you, it is an excellent training aid, always makes people think about how well they are putting a respirator on.

Diego Sampedro
Diego Sampedro
9 years ago

Thank you for this article. It is very interesting.

Mike Clayton
Mike Clayton
9 years ago

Thanks for the comments on the article and the positive comments about FFRED. The FFRED unit is a training aid developed by HSL and does get across the important learning points ina great way. We are keen to see FFRED in action and you may be interested to know that FFRED is available for hire from HSL. Please contact me to discuss.

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