Personal Protective Equipment.
What is PPE?
Imagen that you book a maid in your East London home. Next things are that she turns at your doorstep, bringing with her all necessary detergents, but also and her personal protective equipment. So, basically PPE is defined as “all” equipment including (clothing affording against the weather) which is intended to be worn or held by a person at work and which protects him against one or multiply risks to health and safety, e.g. safety helmets, face masks, high visibility clothing, safety footwear and safety harnesses.
What is the health and safety regulations?
The main objective requires that employers make a suitable and enough assessment of the risks to health and safety of employees at work. If PPE is necessary to protect against risk exposure, employers have a duty to provide items free of charge for employees.
Important requirement of the PPE at Work Regulations 1992 is that the PPE is be supplied and used at work wherever there are risks to health and safety that cannot be adequately controlled in other ways. The regulations also require that PPE:
Is professionally assessed before use, to ensure it is appropriate.
Is maintained and stored properly.
Is provided with instructions on to use it safely.
Is used correctly by employees.
As per the last bullet point, employees have a duty to wear and use PPE when provided and to look after it.
Selection, use, limitations and maintenance of PPE.
Whether or not PPE is required for cleaners’ tasks will be determined by the risk assessment. Every cleaning company risk and COSHH assessments can be found in hardcopy folders on each communal area site. The following table shoes a wide range of PPE, the type of protection offered and common cleaning areas/ tasks for which it should be used:
| PPE | Offers protection for | Protection against hazard | Task/ Location example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protective gloves – rubber | Hands | Chemicals | Disinfecting surfaces. |
| Protective gloves – heavy duty | Hands | Cuts/punctures/skin infection/disease/ abrasion/impact | Moving waste |
| Safety footwear – steel toe cap | Feet | Falling objects/ heavy equipment | Using a ride-on scrubber dryer/ heavy machinery |
| Safety footwear – good sole grip | Body | Slips | All cleaning tasks |
| Protective eyewear – Goggles/ spectacles | Eyes | Chemicals splash/ vapours/ dust | Jet pressure washing/ patio cleaning |
| Respiratory protection – face mask | Breathing | Chemical/ vapour/ dust | Graffiti removal |
| Ear defenders – Muffs/ plugs | Hearing | Exposure to excessive noise | Using noisy equipment. |
| Cold weather clothing | Body | Extreme/ adverse temperatures | External working during winter period. |
| Highly visibility clothing’s | Body | Interface with vehicular traffic | Car park/ service yard cleaning |
| Protective headwear | Head | Head bumping/ falling objects | Working in confined space/ low ceilings |
| Safety harness | Body | Fall from height | Window cleaning from height. |
| Safety lanyards | Body | Fall from height | Window cleaning from height. |
| Protective body overalls | Body | Chemicals/ contamination/ bio-hazard | Cleaning pigeon droppings balconies |
CONCLUSIONS: PPE is not all the same.
Different activities like end tenancy cleaning, office cleaning etc. require different types of PPE. The common misconception is that one type of PPE such as gloves for example protects against all types of substances and risks. How you differentiate from what item protects against what risk is by something called British Standard European Norm or for short BS EN standards. Therefor is vital to read and understand the risks assessments and what type of PPE the task requires you to wear. The way to do this is refer to the BS EN numbers on each RAMS written for professional cleaners.
