Personal protective equipment (PPE) is a control that provides limited protection for workers. Following the hierarchy of controls, it's the safety measure put in place only when all other control measures can't effectively eliminate or minimise the risk of injury or impact to a worker’s health. So what should you do when a worker asks for an exemption from wearing PPE due to a medical condition?
First, a risk assessment has to be carried out against each of the tasks the employee does, to determine how high or low the risk of injury is, using a risk matrix to evaluate likelihood and impact.
For example, if the worker can't wear safety footwear and they work in an environment where there's a low risk of injury - such as in the open, away from vehicles, metal scraps or heavy objects that can be dropped - then it might be acceptable for that worker not to wear safety footwear while completing that task. Or there may be other suitable controls that can be put in place to reduce the risk of injury.
By looking further up the hierarchy of controls there may be other ways to eliminate the risk, isolate the work or the worker, or engineer out the hazard, and so provide a safer environment for all workers.
If there's any risk of injury through not wearing a specific item of PPE, and the risk can't be controlled through any other means, then the worker can't be allowed to carry out the task.
It then becomes a question of whether that worker is fit for that type of work if they can't keep themselves safe and they'd need to go through a more formalised process.
