- Nothing to pay
- No deductions from your compensation
- Access to UK's leading personal injury solicitors
- Excellent claim success rate
- Friendly, supportive and genuine staff
- Impartial legal advice without any cost or commitment
This requires Flash
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) at work
If you work on a building site and your job is hazardous your employer has a legal responsibility to supply you with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in order to adequately protect you from a construction site accident.
The Health and Safety Executive provide a guide to the Personal Protective Equipment at work Regulations 1992 at their website, which provides basic advice for employers. As an employee, you have the right to work in safe conditions. In this respect PPE is defined as all equipment (including protection against the weather) which is intended to be worn or held by a person at work and which protects him against one or more risks to his health or safety'. Some of the principal areas of concern are safety helmets, gloves, eye protection, high visibility clothing, safety footwear and safety harnesses.
A guide to PPE at work
The regulations require that PPE:
Is properly assessed before use to ensure it is suitable
Is maintained and stored properly
Is provided with instructions on how to use it safely
Is used correctly by employees
Your employer should carefully choose the correct types of safety equipment by considering the different hazards in your particular workplace.
Eyes: Safety spectacles, goggles, faceshields, or visors should be provided to protect from chemical or metal splashes, dust, projectiles, radiation, gas and vapour.
Head: An appropriate range of helmets and bump caps need to be available to provide protection from falling or flying objects, risk of head bumping, and hair entanglement.
Breathing: Depending on the environment disposable filtering facepieces, respirators, half- or full-face respirators, air-fed helmets and breathing apparatus are required to enable adequate respiratory protection from dust, vapour, gas and oxygen-deficient atmospheres.
Body: Suitable overalls (conventional or disposable), boiler suits, specialist protective clothing such as chain mail aprons or high visibility clothing should be provided to protect against extremes of temperature, adverse weather, chemical or metal splash, spray from pressure leaks or spray guns, impact or penetration, contaminated dust, excessive wear or entanglement of own clothing.
Hands and Arms: Gloves, gauntlets, mitts, wristcuffs and armlets are necessary to provide protection from abrasion, temperature extremes, cuts and punctures, impact, chemicals, electric shock, skin infection, disease or contamination.
Feet and Legs: Safety boots and shoes with protective toe caps and penetration resistant mid-sole, gaiters, leggings and spats should protect from wet, electrostatic build-up, slipping, cuts, punctures, falling objects, abrasion, metal and chemical splash.
Employer Responsibility
An employer has a responsibility to provide adequate training in the use of PPE and to make sure employees understand all risks present in the workplace that necessitate use of specific pieces of PPE.
The employer is required by law to maintain the equipment; including adequately storing it, cleaning it, obtaining specialist repairs and observing manufacturer's maintenance schedules. Suitable replacement PPE should be made available in the event of malfunction.
Any PPE supplied by the employer should be CE' marked. This ensures it complies with the Personal Protective Equipment Regulations 2002.
An employer should be aware of further sets of Regulations with specific relevance to certain types of work and substances as these have further guidelines on PPE. The Health and Safety Executive website gives relevant advice on construction site accidents and how to avoid them, with details of all regulated industries.
Where there is risk to an employee the employer must provide PPE and cannot ask for money from the employee. It is a legal requirement for the employer's business to be risk assessed and for these risks to be translated into the supply of relevant PPE.
Key points to remember regarding PPE
An employer should be aware of all methods of risk control and not rely on PPE alone. However, in certain situations it is the most effective method and in those cases:
- PPE must be provided
- It must offer adequate protection for its intended use
- Those using it must be adequately trained to use it
- It must be properly maintained and any defects reported
- It must be stored correctly after use and regularly maintained
Most importantly, personal protective equipment is there to stop you having an accident; use it correctly, maintain it well and it could save your life.
