Is Your PPE Fit For Purpose?

With the world still suffering from the outbreak of COVID-19, there has never been a more serious and immediate need for personal protective equipment (PPE). Even the general public are now encouraged to wear masks in situations where they’re likely to be mingling with people at a close distance. This could mean on public transport or at the supermarket. 

It’s a well-known fact that PPE will not only provide protection for your staff, it also makes them feel valued and increases morale. That confidence in our employers has never been so necessary as now, as we contemplate returning to the workplace in a post-COVID market. 

Government guidelines state that staff should have access to the PPE that protects them for the appropriate setting and context. However, this has been difficult with a high global demand for things like visors, gloves and masks. 

In just the UK alone, over 1.48 billion items of PPE were delivered to the frontline in England with tens of millions more items distributed in Scotland, Wales and Northern Island. Many domestic producers have ramped up their production significantly with contracts signed to manufacture 2 billion items of PPE in the UK in the face of desperate need.

Since the 1992 legislation passed requiring employers to provide protective wear in the workplace, PPE has been made available but in few sizes and with limited attention to the end-users’ comfort and, consequently, effectiveness. So is your PPE fit for purpose? Will it keep your workers safe?

Not-So-Personal Protective Equipment 

When the Coronavirus reared its ugly head, it took us all by surprise and forced us into a ‘new normal’ where going to the office was no longer an option.  We saw a huge outpouring from private citizens volunteering to assist the front line and do the very best they could to ease the impact of this deadly virus. Companies made bold decisions to pivot their workforces into productive and efficient online outfits, making every effort to continue to trade and, more importantly, come up with workable solutions that accommodate the 'stay at home' mandate.

We are hearing more and more from our clients that they feel morally obligated to evaluate how their customer-facing staff are equipped. We also have to consider frontline health workers in hospitals and care homes, for example. 

One of the main areas of lacking with PPE is that it offers little in the way of variety. Its claims to being ‘universal’ or ‘unisex’ are not so apparent when we hear stories of female nurses, for instance, who are wearing ill-fitting PPE for 12 hours at a time and putting their health and lives at risk. 

It is as simple as this: when PPE doesn’t fit it isn’t safe. The British Standards Institution (BSI) released a whitepaper on the lack of diversity in the equipment. They say: “Generally if you are outside of the 5th or 95th percentile, then the hope of finding anything to fit is low.” 

However, it’s not only gender that causes issues. Going forward PPE also needs to consider the religion and disabilities of the wearers. Here are just two examples. 

Gloves: When gloves are too big they can significantly reduce the grip-ability of the wearer. This can hinder dexterity and movement and in turn, have a long term effect on productivity. If the gloves are too small, there is a risk of creating rips or holes thus exposing the skin and making the wearer vulnerable to the virus. 

Protective Respiratory and Eye Gear: Goggles, visors or masks that are too big also lend themselves to unproductivity and impaired vision. Where there is a lack of a seal or gaps between the wearer and their protective gear, they are at risk of being exposed to debris or the virus. When this equipment is too small and must be worn for long hours of the day, it can be incredibly uncomfortable to wear and may even injure the face. 

When PPE doesn’t fit or hinders a person’s ability to do their job it may make them less inclined to wear it if they feel like they can work more productively without it. This is completely understandable when time is of the essence and saving lives is a matter of urgency. Those wishing to make their own adjustments to their PPE could be making things worse. Tampering can interfere with the safety of the product in the long term. 

The BSI goes onto say:

“Increasing diversity is a factor which health and safety will have to take greater account of. Increasing participation of women in the workforce, an ageing population with its associated health needs plus growing ethnic diversity as a result of migration and birth rates means that responding to diversity is something all organisations will have to adapt to.”

Solutions

So what can be done? As well as working on a variety of sizing on the manufacturer’s side of things, as an organisation you can get valuable feedback from your workers on what they feel they need and will help them to do their job most effectively. Carefully evaluate exactly what kind of PPE is going to function well in yourself and your team’s working environment. 

One of the great outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic is the focus on PPE and how we make it effective, comfortable and consider all genders & body types with its design. 

At Jermyn Street Design (jSD), it’s been our standard to design for different genders and body types and we couldn’t be more pleased that the mainstream is quickly catching onto the importance of designing in this fashion. 

We manufacture uniforms for leading UK and international brands. During the last two months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been working hard to supply Personal Protective Equipment directly to NHS Trusts and other frontline health workers. Taking our practical knowledge of standard certified PPE items as a starting point, jSD is developing specific masks, gloves, aprons and other items of PPU to fit the specific needs and context of each client's brand and each wearer’s job.     

All our staff are working remotely and have reached out to connect directly with NHS healthcare procurement teams on the frontline of the COVID-19 crisis. We are doing four things:

·      sourcing additional stocks of scrubs;

·      connecting procurement to additional suppliers of isolation coveralls and N95 masks;

·      identifying manufacturers with the capacity to produce more of these items;

·      working with our international supply chain to switch manufacture where feasible.                                                              

In parallel, we’ve been working remotely with both our clients and supply chain to design and develop Personal Protective Uniforms (PPU). Wearer well-being has always been at the heart of jSD's approach to clothes at work; we see PPU as very much integral to every uniform moving forward.

We understand that PPU lies outside the scope of most suppliers of clothes at work; we understand too that uniforms lie outside the remit of PPE specialists. That is why we are making our experience in PPU available to other brands likely to be on the frontline of employee and customer well-being as we emerge from lockdown.

Any organisation in the frontline of COVID-19 health provision and in urgent need of PPE can contact us via [email protected]. Our support services, logistics and supply chain teams will do all we can to help. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.

Similarly, if you’re outside of the frontline but still want to ensure yourself and your staff will be protected upon their return to work, get in touch and get people safe. 

Call us on: 020 8563 5000 | Email: [email protected] | www.jsd.co.uk