The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published an open letter to the food industry in response to concerns raised originally by bakeries, but the relevance of the points raised applies across the whole food sector.
Bakeries raised concerns with the HSE over the restricted supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) across the industry, in particular dust masks. Inhalation of flour in bakeries is a significant risk to employees as it can cause occupational asthma.
However due to the coronavirus pandemic, such PPE is in short supply and owners of bakeries expressed concerns that as employers they rely on dust masks to control the risks to their workforce from hazardous substances such as flour.
In their open letter the HSE has produced advice on addressing the temporary unavailability of PPE in the industry due to the COVID-19 virus. They state that suitable control to protect employees from occupational asthma can be achieved without PPE by adopting good work practices and using engineering controls such as local exhaust ventilation to control the risk. Adopting these measures mean in some cases employees should not require dust masks, and this will reduce overall pressure on the supply chain across the UK.
The HSE say that they do not expect an increase in cases of occupational ashtma during the coronavirus outbreak, so long as employers adopt effective control measures to reduce the risk. However, where cases of occupational asthma do occur, employers must ensure proper reporting is undertaken under the Reporting of Injuries, Disease and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations SI 2013/1471 and the HSE will investigate where appropriate.
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