Dressed to protect

The recent Gulf of Mexico disaster has brought safety in
the oil and gas industry into the spotlight.Calum Squires
offers some guidance on specifying and selecting the right
products for this hazardous workplace

As the investigation into the recent
oil rig disaster in the Mexican
Gulf continues, questions are
being raised about health & safety
management in the offshore oil and gas
industry. The UK offshore industry
currently employs more than 20,000
people, who are exposed to a range of
occupational health risks every day,
including exposure to a wide range of
hazardous substances, radiations, noise,
vibration, extremes of heat and cold and
ergonomic hazards.

Although accident rates in the UK
industry have improved significantly since
the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988, the
industry remains a hazardous place to
work. The main causes of major injuries
in 2009/10 were related to slips/trips/falls
(26), being trapped or struck by moving
objects (11), or injuries associated with
lifts/pulls/pushes/handling of loads (5),
accounting for 83% of the total.

(www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/statistics/stat09
10.htm). Some accidents and illnesses can
be prevented with the proper deployment
and use of personal protective equipment
(PPE) including clothing, head, arms and
feet protection.

The specification and selection of
personal protective equipment and
clothing can still be a daunting task for
those responsible for making the buying
decisions. With so many products
available, selecting products that are fit for
purpose, that are within budge and that
ensure the employer is meeting all the
legal obligations can seem a daunting task.

In the offshore oil and gas industry key
areas for consideration are: safety
footwear to prevent injury from heavy
objects and accidents from slips and trips;
protective clothing for potential exposure
to flame, chemicals, extreme weather
conditions and high visibility and finally,
respiratory protection.

What determines whether
protective clothing or
equipment is required?
A risk assessment, carried out by a
competent risk assessor, will identify the
requirement for an employer to provide
safety equipment as a last line of defence
after all other reasonable precautions have
been taken. Once safety equipment has
been deemed the appropriate option, the
resulting risk assessment will advise that for
some applications or in some working
environments, a certain level of protection
must be supplied to employees, contractors
and/or visitors, depending on the hazard
and the perceived level of risk. It is an
employer’s legal duty to adhere to the
advice on the report and supply
appropriate protective equipment, where
required, free of charge.

How do I know if a garment or
product is fit for purpose?
Choosing a garment or product that is fit
for purpose may be difficult, depending on
the complexity of the job and/or the nature
of the working environment. In the case of
high visibility clothing for example, the risk
assessment report may identify the need for
BS EN471 compliant, Class 1, 2 or 3
garments to be supplied to those deemed to
be at risk. Class 1 garments offer the lowest
level of protection, while Class 3 garments
offer the highest level. Specific information
on Class requirements is available freely
from the HSE and in order to comply with
the BS EN471 Standard for high visibility
clothing, each garment must carry a CE
mark, stating its Class. Couple the
requirement for high visibility with
protection against chemicals or oils, wet
weather or extreme cold, heat exhaustion,
or electric shock, the task of selecting a
garment or garments that will suit everyone
may become even more complicated.

Offshore clothing requirements focus on
flame retardant standards EN 11612:2008
and EN 1149 – 5:2008 for Antistatic
performance. There is also an electric arc
rating standard IEC 61482-2-2009 for
specific work relating to electrical
switchgear flash hazard protection.

If unsure, advice should be sought from
reputable manufacturers and suppliers as
well as organisations such as the HSE, the
BSIF and the Reflective Equipment
Manufacturers Association (REMA).

Chemical protective clothing
By definition chemical protective clothing
keeps the wearer safe from potential
contamination from hazardous materials
via the skin in whatever form and
concentration it may come: solid
particulates, gases, liquids under pressure
or not, from low to high concentrations,
organic or inorganic chemicals. When
selecting appropriate chemical protective
clothing, several factors must be taken
into account such as the type of task being
performed, the nature and concentration
of the substance used, but also the best
possible balance between protection and
comfort to ensure the clothing is worn.

While there are many protective coveralls
available on the market, not all of them
provide the same level of performance,
even if they are certified for the same type
of protection.

To assist with the selection of chemical
protective clothing, the EU has identified
several ‘Types’ of protection within
Category III of the PPE directive. The
manufacturer’s CE certification to a
particular ‘Type’ offers an indication of
the garment’s protection against a specific
hazard: be it gas, liquid or dust.

Protective clothing ‘Types’ include: Type
2: Non Gas Tight Protective Clothing;
Type 3: Liquid Tight Suits; Type 4: Spray
Tight Suits; Type 5: Dry Particle Suits and
Type 6: Reduced Spray Suits.

How do I ensure the protective
safety garments comply with
industry standards?
In order to conform to the relevant
industry standard and therefore legally
comply with workplace health and safety
legislation, all workplace safety clothing
sold in the UK as personal protective
clothing must be CE marked with clear
information on the relevant EN standard,
Type and Class (where applicable).

Whether your required protection is
high visibility, thermal or chemical
protection or cut resistance, each type of
garment has a dedicated set of European
standards to which it must legally
conform.

Respiratory protective
equipment
Approximately 5.5 million workers are
exposed to respiratory hazards in the
workplace and recent research by both the
British Safety Industry Federation (BSIF)
and HSE has highlighted concerns that
RPE is not being effectively selected, used
and maintained in a significant
proportion of workplaces where a
respiratory hazard exists, leaving workers
at risk. When the risk assessment has been
completed and all the relevant factors are
measured against the correct standards,
the employer is able to make an informed
decision about the type of RPE required
to protect workers in any given situation.

The selection process doesn’t end here
though because one of the main excuses
for workers’ reluctance to wear any kind
of protective equipment is bad fit. The
difference between a correctly fitting face
mask and a poorly fitted, leaky and
uncomfortable one could mean the
difference between life and death. Poor
fit testing may affect you, your company
and most importantly your staff. It can
cause serious long term respiratory
problems, you may be wasting your
money on ineffective safety products and
you may not be compliant with the law.

Consequently legislation actually requires
the employer to use a competent fit tester
when selecting products for employees to
wear.

Arco has supported the BSIF in the
development of its recently launched
Fit2Fit Accreditation Scheme. Up until
now, fit testers of RPE have not been
accredited, often making the selection of a
‘competent’ person a matter of luck and
guess work.

Arco is actively encouraging businesses
in the offshore oil and gas sector to ensure
their workers are fitted with adequate
respiratory protection by supporting
Clean Air? Take Care!, a joint initiative
between the British Safety Industry
Federation (BSIF) and the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE). The campaign
aims to help reduce occupational
respiratory disease caused by ineffective
use of respiratory protection in the
workplace, by raising awareness of the
issues that surround it and highlighting
the importance of selecting the correct
respiratory protective equipment.

Preventing slips, trips and falls
According to HSE statistics, accidents as a
result of Slips, Trips or Falls are the most
common types of accidents across all
industry sectors, including offshore oil and
gas. Selecting safety footwear is often a
difficult issue as comfort is a key factor for
the wearer, who could be on their feet all
day. If boots or shoes are badly fitting and
uncomfortable to wear over long periods
then they may be discarded, leaving
workers exposed to danger and according
to Arco’s latest customer research, comfort
is the number one criteria when selecting
safety boots and shoes.

Arco is now able to offer businesses
across all industries a one-stop shop
service for risk assessing and managing
slips and trips in the workplace. Using an
innovative surface testing service that is
integrated into the HSE’s SAT Slip
Assessment Tool, it can now help
customers to assess the risk, identify the
right footwear solution and provide a
choice of high quality, comfortable shoes
and boots in order to minimise the risk of
slips and trips in the workplace.

Consult an expert
To speed up and ease the burden of the
PPE selection process and ensure
compliance with legislation, it is always
beneficial to seek the knowledge,
experience and advice of a specialist
supplier. With years of experience, expert
knowledge of legal requirements and indepth
knowledge of a vast range of
products, an unbiased safety equipment
supplier can collaborate with specialist
manufacturers, assess the situation on site
and advise on a suitable and compatible
range or brand of product.

Partnering with a specialist supplier like
Arco, can be beneficial in terms of expert
advice, particularly for employers that
require a range of PPE types across
different applications or sites. In these
circumstances, a rationalisation of core
products can save money and many manhours
each year.

Calum Squires is Arco’s regional sales
manager for Aberdeen & Highlands. ARCO is
on Stand 101 at Health & Safety ’10 North