The essential theory is that personal protective equipment (PPE) must only be utilised as a previous resort.

The basic Safety Notes – Ppe Stand For? and health and fitness of workers ought to be first safeguarded by actions to reduce workplace dangers at source, by way of complex or organisational means (e.g by substituting hazardous chemical ) or by delivering security on a collective basis (e.g giving scaffolding in its place of harnesses).

Collective protecting steps covering numbers of staff in a workplace ought to have priority more than protecting actions applying to individual workforce.

If these measures are not ample, only then need to PPE be used to protect from the hazards that are unavoidable.