Has Covid-19 had an impact on procuring face masks for engineering services? This survey wants to know

A new survey which aims to establish the availability, cost and use of respiratory protective equipment (RPE) in engineering services has been launched.

The survey, which is being run by engineering services trade bodies ECA, BESA, LEIA and SNIPEF, is open to anyone in the engineering services industry.

The availability and cost of RPE, and most notably face masks, has become a major issue since coronavirus struck the UK. Tight fitting face masks are necessary to help protect many engineering services workers against a range of occupational respiratory hazards.

Paul Reeve, ECA director of CSR, commented, “Businesses continue to advise us that it is very difficult to obtain some types of protective masks, or that prices have increased dramatically, since the coronavirus outbreak.

"To further represent this issue effectively to Government and other industry stakeholders, we need to convey data on the extent of any problems that are being encountered. We therefore urge the engineering services industry to complete this short but important survey."

Debbie Petford, BESA director of member services, added, "We are urging businesses to take part in this important survey to ensure we have a full view of the scale of this issue across the sector. The difficulties in sourcing RPE and the increase in prices is affecting productivity and margins, and will continue to affect the ability of the sector to bounce back from this pandemic.”  

The survey relates to issues around the procurement and use of tight-fitting face masks (such as FFP2 and 3 models), as opposed to surgical masks or general face-coverings.

The survey can be completed here - www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/W5TY3T6. It runs until 4pm on Tuesday 23 June.