Yes if its being used to protect against a hazardous material. I think your argument may have carried some weight if you could have shown that he had been trained on how to properly fit the mask and you could show when he was due to be tested. 'We just hadn't got round to this guy yet' wouldn't give anybody any comfort that you were doing all that is expected to protect employees.

A better argument taht "He's new and we haven't got round to him" would be "The mask isn't needed because there is only a very low level of non-hazardous dust".

Kate, the inspector wasn't interested in the level of dust or how hazardous it was, simply the fact the guy had a mask on was enough to make them approach our guy and ask if he had been fitted for it, completely ignored everything else we had in place and I did not have the opportunity to discuss this with the inspector, I did not say "he's new and we haven't got round to him", the inspector made the comments to the PC and left, it was the PC who told me of the visit from the HSE and their concerns. I shall remember in future when we start a new guy to drop everything and rush to his site to have him fitted for a mask whether he needs it or not. Can anyone tell me if an operative is exposed to ANY dust do they have to be fitted for a dust mask? Again most masks out there will fail the test so why are they still on sale???????

The employee had been with you for a week and had not been face fitted for a mask. Why not? Saying you hadn't got round to him is not good enough. If you think he doesn't need a mask due to low or non hazardous emissions why do you face fit your other employees? EVERY employee should be given ALL PPE before performing the task. The old argument of 'why are the non face fit masks on sale' doesn't have any relevance to this. We all know there are plenty of useless items sold as PPE aimed at the retail industry (for DIY etc..). As a professional you have to set standards and the HSE demands good practice in all cases, with no exceptions.

Cor Blimey PinkDiamond, I'm with Claire on this one! Its probably not what you meant, but Every employee should be given ALL PPE? Surely only that PPE that is specific to the task? Or are we going to have Forklift Drivers in full breathing apparatus? In all serious, I'd probably be arguing that if the risk assessment (msds, EH40 or wherever) indicates that no dust mask is required (assuming thats the case) then IF the operator wants to wear one for his own comfort, then so be it. I wouldn't even consider face fit testing? If there is a reqt for PPE, then it should fit and be appropriate. Consider my forklift driver, whose task has identified that safety specs are not required, yet he choses to wear them because the "tinted ones look cool and are a bit like sunglasses" do I prevent him from wearing them because they are not the correct impact protection? I often wore my safety shoes when in the office, or when driving from site to site, clearly there was no reqt from a hazard aspect, so therefore the safety shoes were inappropriate? Face fit testing is fine, but it shouldnt be relied on, and in this case, I feel its a bit ott, again assuming that the hazards associated with cutting the fibreboard were as described! In a previous employment I gave up with facefit testing disposable masks and issued "airstream" helmets which were alot less hassle. They turned out to be more cost effective over time as well! Clair can now proudly say that she, at least, knows of someone who carried out Facefit testing, even if he shared her sceptisism! Holmezy

I tend to agree with Holmezy. We had a similar situation where there was no WEL associated with the dust other than general dust respirable(4mg/m3 8hr TWA and inhalable 10mg/m3 8hr TWA) LEV was working well. However several operatives felt more comfortable wearing a' nuisance' dust mask. Therefore we made reference to this in the SOP and RA's.

We are in construction, those with experience of construction workers will know that they can stay on a site for a few hours and then leave simply because they don't fancy the site or the work they are being asked to do, it is completely unrealistic to expect every operative to be face fit tested before he starts any work with you, on a 6 month contract which requires around 30 men to complete we could have a turnover of over 100 men. To give you an idea we recently finished a large contract which took 18 months to complete, on average we had around 70 operatives on site, we carried out nearly 400 face fit tests to operatives whilst they worked with us on site and guess what, very few were carried out on the first day they walked onto site, there are two of us who work in the H&S dept to do this work. We have all the other control measures in place regarding dust, noise and vibration and are very hard on the guys to make sure they work in this way, but even so I can arrive on site to find an operative with his dust mask on his head when cutting materials. As for the dust masks available I can assure you that some, (particularly the ones with the metal clip at the nose) will never pass the fit test, they simply do not give a seal around the face regardless of the shape of the persons face, these are not "DIY" type but those sold by leaders in the PPE field and are not cheap either. In the situation I first spoke of the operative did not need a mask, the material was non hazardous and the dust was controlled at source, the HSE inspector chose to ignore this and concentrate on the fit test simply because he was wearing a mask, we went beyond the call of duty but were criticised for it. We fit test all operatives who work with us, (when we get round to it), which is very unusual for our industry, we are very professional and set higher standards than those we try to compete with, we are far better at H&S than our rivals but it doesn't help in winning contracts, go figure. We have a saying in Glasgow, " I wouldn't go home to her with a short pay packet", maybe you could apply for a job with the HSE. (Thats a joke by the way)

The number of people you employ and there length of service is irrelevant. The assessment of risk and who is exposed to that risk and requires task specific RPE is the important point. We employ 28 people, 6 of who undertake duties where RPE is required.................guess how many have undertaken face fit training?