Support from Arco Professional Safety Services

Overcoming the complexities of respiratory risks can be challenging. As a business, it is your responsibility to manage the risks of potential ill health and injury to your employees. It is therefore essential that control measures are implemented to help protect workers.

Arco Professional Safety Services is a market leader in the provision of respiratory management solutions. These solutions include consultancy and risk management support, specialist respiratory services including implementation of a respiratory management programme, expert training and equipment for managing respiratory risks.

We can offer risk assessment guidance and support businesses to identify workplace hazards and implement practical measures to eliminate or reduce them.

COSHH Assessments

We can arrange for a comprehensive COSHH assessment to be undertaken at your site. This will help you to identify your hazardous substance/s, evaluate the usage risks and determine the required control measures.

Workplace Air Monitoring

A requirement under COSHH regulations when working with hazardous substances, air monitoring enables businesses to understand how much contaminant is in the air. We can offer workplace air monitoring, helping businesses identify the airborne hazards in their workplace before introducing control measures such as local exhaust ventilation (LEV) or respiratory protective equipment (RPE). It can also be used to ensure those control measures are performing effectively and are protecting employee's health

As a customer you have access to our respiratory services which include support with product selection, respiratory training, face fit testing, equipment inspections, air purity testing and more.

Implementation of Respiratory Management Programme

RPE is widely selected as a protection measure after the hierarchy of controls have been followed and the hazard remains. It's therefore essential that an effective Respiratory Management Programme is implemented to help protect people at work. There are six key elements to implementing an effective Respiratory Management Programme:

1. Correct RPE Selection – RPE selected should be adequate to control the hazards and suitable for the tasks and environment.
2. RPE Training – Workers should receive training to understand their respiratory risks and how to use their RPE correctly.
3. Face Fit Testing by Competent Fit2Fit Qualified Specialists - Wearers of tight-fitting RPE must receive face fit testing, to ensure correct fit and seal of mask is achieved.
4. RPE Inspections & Maintenance – Equipment should be inspected, cleaned and maintained in accordance with industry standards to ensure continued level of protection.
5. Record Keeping – Valid records should be available for inspection if required.
6. Suitable and Sufficient Storage of RPE - When storing your RPE ensure it is kept clean, can be easily accessed and is not exposed to potentially damaging conditions. Store your RPE in a dry place and avoid storing with other items such as consumables or machinery.

We can support you to develop a fully compliant respiratory management programme or plug the gaps in your existing processes.

Lung Function Testing

We have partnered with a specialist national occupational health provider to provide a standalone respiratory assessment to test how well your lungs work. This assessment can help diagnose and monitor certain lung conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among others.

Face Fit Testing

Wearers of tight-fitting or close-fitting RPE must receive a face fit test for each variety of masks they wear, to ensure it fits correctly and achieves the tight seal required to provide protection. Ideally, this should be carried out at the mask selection stage and repeated every two years or sooner depending on the risks, if the wearers facial features change or if switching to a new mask manufacturer or model.

We have one of the largest teams of mobile RPE technicians available to undertake BSIF Fit2Fit qualified face fit testing across the UK. We can deliver face fit testing at either one of our safety centres, a customer's site, in select safety stores with a Portacount machine or in our mobile training units.

We also deliver Fit2Fit qualified training courses on Qualitative Face Fit Testing.

Air Purity Testing

It's a legal obligation for employers to test compressed air quality for contaminants. They have a duty of care to their employees to ensure that the breathing air they are supplied with is adequate for the respiratory protective devices (RPD) they are using and safe to breathe.

At Arco Professional Safety Services we can undertake a risk assessment to identify any causes of potential air contamination in your airlines or any compressor intakes and dependent on risk, determine a suitable frequency of testing.

If you are using airline respiratory equipment from a compressor, we can carry out the required BS EN 12021 tests to ensure your air quality is free from contamination and meets the required standard.

We use Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) testing and check for oxygen, water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, oil and any other contamination. We provide accurate results which can be used as a permanent record. We can also undertake an investigation into contaminant source, identifying it from spectral library of 300+ commonly found contaminants and recommend corrective action.

Given the long latency of work-related respiratory illnesses, it's important that workers understand their respiratory risks and are properly trained to use the RPE selected.

With a detailed respiratory knowledge and understanding, our expert trainers are ideally placed to offer the best training experience possible. They can work with you to understand your training needs and create a tailor-made learning package, or you can choose from our range of off-the-shelf courses.

We offer a comprehensive range of respiratory protective equipment training and can teach your employees the skills they need to be able to deliver face fit testing.

Safety critical equipment must be subject to thorough inspection and maintenance, by a competent person, on a regular basis, as per manufacturers guidance. Poorly maintained respiratory equipment may not offer the assumed level of protection to the wearer.

Our qualified technicians can provide training for wearers to conduct their own monthly COSHH inspections or conduct these inspections on your behalf as part of our managed services package. We currently carry out inspections on a range of respiratory equipment including half masks, full face masks, powered respirators, airline respirators, escape respirators and self-contained breathing apparatus.

We can also carry out manufacturers required annual services to make sure your equipment is maintained correctly to provide adequate protection. RPE servicing and maintenance can be carried out at customer sites, or at our designated service centres.

Inspection records should be valid (up to date), kept for a minimum of five years and always be available for inspection if required.

Asset Management

Arco Professional Safety Services has developed an online Customer Asset Tracking (CAT) platform that captures all safety critical information in one place, making it easy to view and manage training expiry dates, certificates, personal protective equipment (PPE) inspections, re-testing of fall protection systems and associated documents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The CAT platform simplifies the administration associated with managing safety critical equipment and assets to ensure your equipment inspections and compliance records are fully up to date with legislation.

You can also outsource the administration and management of safety critical equipment to our managed services team, who can take care of this for you.

For any more information on any of Arco Professional Safety Services respiratory management solutions contact 0330 390 0822, email info@arcoservices.co.uk or visit https://www.arcoservices.co.uk/services.