PPE & Face Coverings

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) refers to anything that is carried or worn to protect the carrier or wearer, be that at home, at work, or in leisure pursuits.

In order for PPE to be marketed in the UK, it needs to have been verified by a notified body, that is a body authorised to do so by the EU.

We are seeing advertisers selling PPE that has not been verified by a notified body, but some other organisation. An easy way of telling whether a certificate is from a notified body or not is to look for the notified body number, which should take the form NB ####. This is information that must appear on verification certificates, so if it’s not listed that’s a good indicator that the organisation is not a notified body.

You can also check the EU database of notified bodies here: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/nando/index.cfm?fuseaction=directive.notifiedbody&dir_id=155501 but please note that different bodies cover verification for different equipment so it may yet be an issue if they’ve issued a certificate for something they’re not authorised to verify.

Face Masks that are intended to protect the wearer are PPE. In the context of protecting the wearer from Covid 19, the mask needs to be FFP 2 or FFP 3 – these ratings reflect the number of particulates that are filtered by the mask, FFP 2 at 94% or FFP 3 at 99%.

Face Coverings or Non-Medical Face Masks are intended to protect other people from the wearer and are currently unregulated. These can be advertised as long as no claims are made for them, i.e. on an “availability only” basis.