Hi

We are craft bakery which uses FFP3 respirators in conjunction with LEV but also use PPE only for a small number of short term jobs such as hand dusting speciality bread loaves as they are loading into a conveyor oven. Although we have stock, our PPE supplier is now quoting a minimum of 6 months lead time for any new orders. This will result in use having no stock in the coming months. Although flour dust monitoring levels are below WEL, we will still be exposing staff to flour dust especially when doing the small jobs. 

My question is how do you think the HSE are going to enforce COSHH considering it is an absolute duty and the lack PPE supply.  

thanks 

I had a situation last year where there was potential exposure, not to dust but to solvent vapour, that the existing LEV could not handle for technical reasons. The answer was a small, bench top, self-contained system that allowed the employee to carry out the task with adequate control. Whilst I have not seen the actual situation, from experience in bakeries I envisage that this could be a possible solution. If you let me have contact details in a PM I will happily provide you with information on the (U.K. manufactured) system and contacts.

Very enlightening link - eliminating PPE through other controls seems to be the guidance

Edited by user 22 April 2020 20:09:59(UTC)  | Reason: FFS