Hi

I'm trying to find out what other companies do if they have colleagues who refuse to shave for non-religous / medical reasons when required to do so for face fit testing for close fitting dust masks.

Do companies provide loose fitting masks / respirators and recharge the individual or do companies take a view that all RPE should be provided free regardless of the fact that the employee is failing to fulfil their obligation to comply with H&S policy?

Interested to know what others views are.

Thank you!

http://forum.iosh.co.uk/posts/t132320-Face-fit-testing-enforcement

http://forum.iosh.co.uk/posts/t132990-Operatives-not-shaving-for-respiratory-protection

http://forum.iosh.co.uk/posts/t127657-RPE-and-Shaving-Facial-Hair

http://forum.iosh.co.uk/posts/t125236-Shaving

small sample of what can be found using the search function

Re-charging for provision of RPE is not permissible under UK law.

You need to go back to your job advert & contract clearly stipulating "clean shaven" - H&S is secondary and as a responsible employer your efforts should be directed to eliminating the problem at source not shoe horning human beings in to RPE because it is cheaper.

BTW Police Scotland has recently had to back track on imposing a clean shaven policy to make officers fit their prescribed RPE.

Hi Sue,

This is probably not what you and/or you employer wants to hear but if I can I'll summarise everything that you will find in all the other threads.  I may sound a bit blunt but only to save you going through all the details in the other threads, its really not meant to offend.

No you can't do any of the things you are asking about, particularly as you have said it is regarding RPE for dust.

In the first instance you should be looking to not have RPE at all by using the heiracy of control and managing the exposure through elimination or engineering controls.

If this cant be done for technical reasons (and if you get any HSE intervention they will really push for a robust justification why it can't) then the PPE you have should be chosen to fit the wearer, not the other way around.  For exposure to dust where some employees may chose to have any kind of facial hair, this is quite easily done with the use of air fed hoods for those employees.  Yes they will be more expensive than close fitting respirators, which i expect is the biggest concern, but that is your only viable option.

If you had asked about breathing apparatus then there is a place for clean shaven policies to ensure the ppe is effective but for dust that is not the case.

Hopefully that wasn't too blunt but I have really tried to do the simplest summary I can.