COVID-19 thrust PPE into the public spotlight and brought multiple challenges for wearable protection. What have been the wider repercussions for the PPE market – and OSH professionals?
When the COVID-19 contagion was at its most virulent, the degree of public attention focused on PPE was intense.
While most attention was on healthcare, interest in PPE in other occupations also came to the fore, where protective clothing designed primarily to safeguard against workplace hazards also served to block exposure to infection.
At the same time, the heightened demand created unprecedented commercial opportunities for incumbent and new PPE manufacturers and suppliers – demand that looks set to escalate post-pandemic.
The global PPE market value is now anticipated to reach $131.2bn by 2030, with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7% over the forecast period, according to Grand View Research (2022).
Analysts report that the market is now being driven by a confluence of factors, such as increased spending on worker safety and protective products, coupled with greater awareness of the stringency of incoming workplace safety rules and regulations.
PPE spending: will senior management wear it?
‘As OSH professionals are considering procuring PPE, they should anticipate all use scenarios
including daily use and emergency preparedness. They should also contemplate factors such as availability, training, fit testing, shelf life, storage and maintenance,’ says Nikki McCullough. ‘Selecting PPE that is widely available in large quantities may mean that it’s easier to procure in an emergency. And if workers are trained and fit-tested in widely available models, there will be less training and fit testing to do in an escalating emergency.’
‘It’s important that health and safety managers identify PPE that specifically caters to the task at hand,’ says Alvaro Vaselli president and CEO at SKYDEX. ‘With so much bioengineering data now available, PPE can be designed to offer true protection for each specific situation.’
‘Knowing the options for different combinations of PPE to provide the necessary protection is another way that OHS professionals can be prepared,’ says Nikki.
Last resort
There have also been calls for employers to see PPE as a ‘last resort’ when it comes to preventing workers from harm in working environments: they should primarily risk assess and follow the hierarchy of control to ensure the most appropriate risk controls are in place to eliminate or reduce harm and heighten protection, rather than deem PPE as their foremost means of risk reduction (IOSH, 2022).
‘We must remember that PPE has limitations as a control – it only protects the wearer, it must be of the right specification, and it must be maintained and worn correctly,’ says Duncan Spencer, head of advice and practice at IOSH. ‘Of course, there usually are much better controls to implement, such as eliminating or isolating the hazard or developing safe systems of work. In this context PPE should be, where possible, viewed as a supportive control to more effective control options.’
As more people have to don more PPE more often, the issues that brings, especially in the area of ‘wearability’, need to be addressed. More comfortable equipment made of high-quality fabric, for instance, is expected to fuel market expansion – as is demand for equipment that combines safety with better aesthetics and technological innovation.
Lessons learned from the pandemic continue to reverberate in the OSH profession and beyond.
The COVID-19 crisis reinforced the critical importance of hygiene in shared spaces, public and professional, says Roberta Charlett, head of marketing at Elis UK: ‘While hygiene precautions had always been a major forefront consideration in industries such as food manufacture and production, under the spotlight of the pandemic it also became a major concern across wider businesses.’
The rapidity with which this concern manifested itself revealed lapses in understanding about what PPE was designed to do, recalls Stuart Haysman CMIOSH, director at Haysman Consulting.
‘In the rush to “don a mask”, the important question of “which mask is right for this application” was often overlooked,’ Stuart says. ‘This was not helped by government guidance changing shape regularly as we moved through the pandemic. This “lack of awareness” issue has existed in workplaces for years, but the pandemic opened the issue up to the whole of the UK population.’
While much of the R&D that has gone into PPE improvements was accelerated by the exigencies of pandemic, commercial opportunities arising from heightened demand also spurred the market, Roberta says. ‘However, many of the solutions required to meet the challenges posed by the pandemic were already on the market.’
Roberta cites the example of NHS trusts that championed reusable PPE. This involved a phased roll-out of reusable isolation gowns developed in conjunction with NHS England and NHS Improvement. Unlike many imported disposable alternatives, these garments are fully fit for purpose and can be worn/laundered up to 75 times without compromising protection levels.
The range of PPE is already huge and can be confusing
‘The range of available PPE is already huge,’ says Stuart. ‘It can be confusing for the various stakeholders in an organisation to understand what they need, what offers the correct protection level, and how it should be used.
‘I’m always initially suspicious of the latest PPE trend – does it actually offer a measurable risk improvement, or is it just an existing product reworked and modernised? OSH professionals should be influenced by hard science, not seductive marketing.’
Smart PPE integrates wearable connected technology to monitor user behaviour (including health status) and potentially hazardous external environments. Advanced ‘backend’ tech, such as AI and the Industrial Internet of Things, can further enhance safety and protection.
PPE compliance: will employees wear it?
Deciding what PPE to purchase going forward is one thing; ensuring that the people it has been bought for will wear it might present an additional challenge, suggests Nikki McCullough.
‘Messaging that the pandemic is “over” may make it more challenging for OSH professionals to secure budgets for PPE, to have time allocated for training and fit testing, and to enforce good selection and use practices,’ she says.
‘Managing PPE compliance has always required effort,’ says Stuart Haysman. ‘Depending on the maturity of a given
organisation’s compliance culture, it may require significant and continued focus in four key areas. To begin with, people choosing to wear PPE in the first place, followed by people wearing PPE correctly – failing to do so through lack of knowledge or an attempt to improve their own comfort. Third, there is keeping reusable PPE clean and effective, and fourth, ensuring that senior management lead by example – they often don’t.’
However, ‘If anything, as we enter the post-pandemic era, maintaining diligence towards PPE should – in theory, at least – become slightly easier for OSH professionals,’ says Roberta Charlett.
The smart answer
General expectations are that these innovations will assure user confidence and acceptance, and foster market demand.
‘Smart PPE may bring a lot of benefits, along with some new factors to be addressed,’ says Nikki McCullough, vice-president, global application engineering and regulatory, 3M Personal Safety Division. ‘A key requirement of smart PPE is that the PPE provides the required protection to the worker and that the connectivity aspect provides an additional benefit to the OSH professional and/or the worker, without itself creating a distraction or hazard.’
It’s also important to confirm that if the connected aspect of the product fails, the item will still provide protection, Nikki says. Additional considerations for these types of PPE include ensuring that facility data privacy policies are in place, that software can be supported, and that the workers are comfortable with the technology – and how to use it.
REFERENCES
Grand View Research. (2020) Personal protective equipment market size, share and trends analysis report by product (hand protection, eye protection, face protection, hearing protection), by end-use, by region, and segment forecasts, 2022 - 2030. See: www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/personal-protective-equipment-ppe-market?utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=cmfe_10-oct-22&utm_term=personal-protective-equipment-ppe-market&utm_content=rd1 (accessed 28 February 2023).
IOSH. (2022) Employers warned not to just rely on PPE to protect workers. See: https://press.iosh.com/press-releases/a61e2593-0c82-4b9e-a603-6294619c877a/employers-warned-not-to-just-rely-on-ppe-to-protect-workers/ (accessed 28 February 2023).
