Posted By Alan Woodage Clare, No, in short, a doctors note does not exempt an employee and nor should the GP be making such a statement. If the current PPE is unsuitable / agravating a condition then you are left with one of 2 options. 1 Change the PPE to an acceptable alternative or custom made items. 2 If the PPE cannot be avoided / engineered out then the employee must be re assigned to other duties or redundancy / pensioned on medical grounds. Really tricky situation but if the condition was present at time of employment and the company has not carried out any health screening there is nothing else to be done. Equally if the condition is as a result of works carried out while in the employ of the company. The other option os to seek another proffesional opinion as to the complaint / effects on the person. Ideally an independant OH service or specialist in the field of the complaint (at the companies cost). Hope this helps.

Posted By lewes What about this: If someone has part or all of an artificial leg and they insist that safety shoes offer little or no support. Can they refuse to wear them? Personally I would say that they have to wear at least one safety shoe on the good leg. Any thoughts ?

Posted By A Olsen Has anyone come across a reasonable solution to someone who cannot wear a hard hat? I have two employees who suffer scalp problems whenever they wear one. I've tried different types of hard hats, plastic v. leather harness, vented shell, absorbent liners etc. to no avail. Interestingly both are...'follically challenged'. Only solution appears to be keeping them out of the areas where they are required.