Why is the economic efficiency of using PPE calculated? New methodology for assessing personal protective equipment: what will it consist of? Methodology for reducing the class of working conditions when workers use effective PPE

Answer to the question:

Yes, I should.

The procedure for conducting a special assessment of working conditions (hereinafter referred to as SOUT), defined by Federal Law dated December 28, 2013 No. 426-FZ “On Special Assessment of Working Conditions” (hereinafter referred to as Law No. 426-FZ), involves, along with the identification of harmful and (or) dangerous factors of the working environment and the labor process, as well as assessing the level of their impact on the employee, taking into account the deviation of their actual values ​​from the standards (hygienic standards) of working conditions established by the federal executive body authorized by the Government of the Russian Federation; assessment of the use of individual and collective protective equipment for workers.

It will be useful for you to know about Changes in working conditions in the material at the link.

Details in the materials of the Personnel System:

1. Magazine: Handbook of occupational safety specialist, No.

Special assessment of working conditions

Assessing the effectiveness of personal protective equipment

S.V. Vikhrov, beginning research department Department of Scientific Work of JSC "Klin Institute of Safety and Working Conditions"

V.V. Ivanov, Ved. scientific co-workers Department of Scientific Work of JSC "Klin Institute of Safety and Working Conditions"

The task of providing an employee with effective personal protective equipment requires taking into account the actual working conditions at his workplace and cannot be solved by simply complying with the standard standards for their free issuance. The methodology approved allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of personal protective equipment. by order of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated December 5, 2014 No. 976n

The procedure for conducting a special assessment of working conditions (hereinafter referred to as SOUT), defined by Federal Law dated December 28, 2013 No. 426-FZ “On Special Assessment of Working Conditions” (hereinafter referred to as Law No. 426-FZ), involves, along with the identification of harmful and (or) dangerous factors of the production environment and the labor process, as well as assessing the level of their impact on the employee, taking into account the deviation of their actual values ​​from the standards (hygienic standards) of working conditions established by the federal executive body authorized by the Government of the Russian Federation; assessment of the use of personal and collective protective equipment for workers.*

The Procedure for certification of workplaces based on working conditions, which was in force until last year (approved by order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia dated April 26, 2011 No. 342n; hereinafter referred to as Procedure No. 342n) provided for an assessment of the provision of workers with special clothing, special footwear and other personal protective equipment (hereinafter referred to as PPE ), carried out through the sequential implementation of the following procedures:

Law No. 426-FZ, which entered into force on January 1, 2014, provides for, when assessing the use of PPE, instead of assessing the provision of workers with PPE, assessing the effectiveness of PPE.

Effective in this case, based on the provisions of the technical regulations of the Customs Union “On the safety of personal protective equipment” TR CU 019/2011 (approved by decision of the Commission of the Customs Union dated 09.12.2011 No. 878; hereinafter referred to as TR CU 019/2011), should include PPE , meeting two main requirements:

1) they ensure the prevention and (or) reduction of the impact of harmful and (or) hazardous production factors on the employee;

2) they do not lead to unacceptable effects on the employee’s health due to the use of PPE in the workplace, including exposure to the materials from which such PPE is made.

With that said, effective use of PPE is the use of PPE:

• ensuring worker protection by preventing and (or) reducing to acceptable levels exposure to harmful and (or) hazardous production factors through the correct selection and use of PPE.
  • comparison of the range of PPE actually issued with the corresponding standard standards for the free issuance of PPE to employees (hereinafter referred to as the standard standards);
  • checking the availability of certificates (declarations) of compliance with personal protective equipment issued to employees;
  • checking the established procedure for providing workers with PPE;
  • assessment of the compliance of issued PPE with the actual state of working conditions in the workplace.
• have passed mandatory certification in the manner established by TR CU 019/2011;
• ensuring worker protection by preventing and (or) reducing to acceptable levels exposure to harmful and (or) hazardous production factors through the correct selection and use of PPE.

It will be useful for you to know about shelf life of a personal PPE issuance record card in the material at the link.

The latter circumstance can be assessed in the course of carrying out an assessment of labor conditions in accordance with the Methodology for reducing the class (subclass) of working conditions when workers employed in workplaces with hazardous working conditions use effective personal protective equipment that has passed mandatory certification in the manner established by the relevant technical regulations, approved . by order of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated December 5, 2014 No. 976n (hereinafter referred to as Methodology No. 976n), based on established assessment indicators.

It should be recalled that the concept "effective personal protective equipment" first appeared in the manual R 2.2.2006-05 “Guide to the hygienic assessment of factors in the working environment and the labor process. Criteria and classification of working conditions" (approved by the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation on July 29, 2005; hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines).

Example

Clause 5.11.6 of the Manual states that, in agreement with the territorial departments of Rospotrebnadzor, working conditions can be assessed as less harmful (by one level, but not lower than class 3.1), including “when using effective (having a certificate of conformity) ) personal protective equipment.” Thus, effective in the Guidelines meant PPE that had a certificate of conformity.

Subsequently, in paragraph 33 of Order No. 342n, it was noted that when assessing the provision of workers with PPE, an additional assessment of the effectiveness of the PPE issued to the employee can be carried out. At the same time, the note to this paragraph indicated that the effectiveness of the PPE issued to the employee is confirmed by compliance with the requirements of labor safety standards, which define a set of measures to ensure the effective use of PPE in the workplace. Thus, it was established that, along with the effectiveness of the PPE issued to the employee, the effectiveness of their use by the employer should be assessed.

Methodology for assessing the effectiveness of PPE

To substantiate the results obtained and the conclusions drawn, the expert of the organization conducting the special assessment process can use various information, including:

Certificates of conformity for personal protective equipment;

Operational documentation for PPE and other documents from PPE manufacturers;

Cards for special assessment of working conditions;

Personal cards for recording the issuance of personal protective equipment;

Results of employee surveys, etc.

Methodology No. 976n, which provides for assessing the effectiveness of PPE, came into force on May 25, 2015. Given that the approach it contains has never been used in practice before, assessing the effectiveness of PPE can be a difficult task. And the solution to such a problem involves, first of all, a careful study of the formulations contained in Methodology No. 976n.

Example

The following points require special attention when applying Method No. 976n:

The reduction of the (class) subclass of working conditions is carried out not in relation to the workplace, but in relation only to the harmful production factor for protection against which the assessed PPE is used;

Assessment of the effectiveness of PPE can be carried out exclusively in relation to harmful production factors, the impact levels of which correspond to subclasses 3.2-3.4 (harmful working conditions of 2-4 degrees);

Reducing the class (subclass) of working conditions below subclass 3.1 (harmful working conditions of the 1st degree) is not allowed;

The list of harmful production factors assessed according to Method No. 976n actually includes a chemical factor and aerosols of predominantly fibrogenic action (hereinafter referred to as APFD), since Method No. 976n involves assessing the effectiveness of a limited number of types of PPE, in particular, filter-type respiratory PPE;

The effectiveness of PPE is assessed in relation to each employee employed at the workplace, and if several workers are employed at the workplace, a reduction in the class (subclass) of working conditions is allowed subject to the conditions for reducing the class (subclass) of working conditions in relation to each employee.

Methodology No. 976n provides that the assessment of the effectiveness of PPE and the effectiveness of the use of PPE is carried out by an expert of the organization conducting the SOUT, through the consistent implementation of five procedures.

At the same time, PPE issued to an employee is considered effective and effectively used if:

• all procedures provided for by Methodology No. 976n have been fully implemented;
• the indicators determined during such procedures received a positive assessment from the expert of the organization conducting the special assessment;
• the value of a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of PPE introduced by Methodology No. 976n is greater than or equal to 0.9 points.

As part of the assessment of the effectiveness of PPE (protective properties) and the assessment of the effectiveness of the use of PPE (correct use, care and storage), the expert of the organization conducting the special assessment must ensure that the requirements for the use of PPE in regulatory documents are met, including a number of requirements contained in the Intersectoral Rules for Providing Workers with Special Clothing, Special Footwear and Other Personal Protective Equipment (approved by Order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia dated June 1, 2009 No. 290n), as well as local regulatory documents of the enterprise.

The assessment of the effectiveness of PPE and its effective use is carried out by an expert of the organization conducting the special assessment system, based on the assessment two groups of indicators characterizing efficiency:

1) selection of personal protective equipment;

2) use of PPE.

Selection of PPE

The first group of indicators includes:

• indicator of compliance of PPE issued to the employee with the list of harmful production factors in the workplace identified during the special assessment ( V f);
• indicator of compliance of the protective properties of PPE issued to the employee with the actual levels of harmful production factors established during the assessment process ( VC);
• an indicator that evaluates the consumer properties of filter-type respiratory protective equipment issued to an employee (ease of use and quality of fit) ( In);
• indicator of compliance of the protective properties of PPE issued to the employee with the actual levels of harmful production factors established during the special assessment and characteristic of certain types of economic activity ( V o).

At the same time, one of the most important when assessing the effectiveness of PPE selection is determining the indicator VC— an indicator of compliance of the protective properties of PPE issued to the employee with the actual levels of harmful production factors established during the special assessment.

To illustrate the above, consider a situation that may arise in practice.

Example

It is required to evaluate the effectiveness of filter-type respiratory protective equipment at two conventional carpenter workplaces.

The initial data is as follows.

1. Harmful production factors at the specified conditional workplaces are noise and wood dust.

2. At the enterprise where the workplaces in question are located, proper means of collective protection for workers are used.

3. Both carpenters are provided with PPE in accordance with standard standards, which is recorded in their personal cards for recording the issuance of PPE. In particular, workers were issued the same certified respiratory filter type PPE with a protection factor of four. The scope of application of these respiratory PPE extends to wood dust.

Below is the procedure for assessing the compliance indicator of the protective properties of PPE ( VC) for filter-type respiratory protective equipment for the carpenters’ workplaces under consideration.

In accordance with hygienic standards GN 2.2.5.1313-03 “Chemical factors of the production environment. Maximum permissible concentrations (MPC) of harmful substances in the air of the working area" (approved by the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation on April 27, 2003) The maximum permissible concentration of wood dust is 6 mg/m 3. According to the Methodology for conducting a special assessment of working conditions, approved. By order of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated January 24, 2014 No. 33n, wood dust is classified as a weakly fibrogenic APFD.

Based on the results of the special assessment, it was determined that the actual average shift concentration of wood dust in the worker’s breathing zone at the first conditional workplace was 25.0 mg/m3, at the second - 23.0 mg/m3. With regard to APFD, the same subclass of working conditions of the 2nd degree of harmfulness (subclass 3.2) is established at both conditional workplaces, since the excess of the actual concentration of wood dust in the air of the working area above the maximum permissible concentration is in the range (> 3.0-6.0) times.

When using the filter-type respiratory protective equipment issued to both carpenters, taking into account its protection factor, the level of exposure to wood dust at the first workplace will decrease to 6.25 mg/m 3, at the second - to 5.75 mg/m 3.

In such a situation, the assessment of the indicator VC for filter-type respiratory PPE used at the first workplace will be considered negative, since 6.25 mg/m3 > 6.0 mg/m3 (i.e., more than the maximum permissible concentration), and for filter-type respiratory PPE, used at the second workplace is positive, since 5.75 mg/m 3< 6,0 мг/м 3 (т. е. меньше ПДК).

Taking into account the fact that, according to Method No. 976n, the value of the specific gravity of the indicator VC is equal to 0.5, we can say that in the described situation, even taking into account the coinciding circumstances (the same subclasses of working conditions for APFD at the workplaces in question, the same filter-type respiratory PPE and the same professions of workers), the used filter-type respiratory PPE does not provide proper protection of the carpenter employed in the first job. Such an employee should be provided with other respiratory PPE of the filter type, which has a higher protection factor. In relation to the first workplace, reducing the class (subclass) of working conditions for APFD with filter-type respiratory PPE used is impossible, since the value of a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of respiratory PPE introduced by Methodology No. 976n in this case will not exceed 0.5 points, which is noticeable lower than the required 0.9 points.

The above example shows that issuing PPE to employees based on standard standards alone does not provide them with adequate protection, since this approach does not take into account the actual working conditions in the workplace, as well as the existing professional risks in the production unit. It is obvious that filter-type respiratory PPE for the carpenter employed at the first workplace was chosen incorrectly by the employer, since the protective properties of such filter-type respiratory PPE do not correspond to the existing working conditions.

Use of PPE

We can say that when assessing the effectiveness of PPE, the expert of the organization conducting the special assessment and assessment process evaluates individual stages of the process of providing workers with PPE at the enterprise. This assessment allows the expert of the organization conducting the special safety and health assessment, on the one hand, and the labor protection specialists of the enterprise, on the other, to ensure that the employer has provided adequate protection of personnel from the effects of harmful production factors using effective personal protective equipment based on their correct selection and use

The second important procedure performed by the expert of the organization conducting the special assessment system, as part of the application of Methodology No. 976n, is the assessment of a group of indicators characterizing the assessment of the effectiveness of the use of PPE. This procedure involves determining, among other things, the following indicators:

• an indicator that evaluates the compliance of the time of use of PPE with the period of guaranteed preservation of the protective properties of PPE with appropriate storage and care, specified in the operational documentation or other documents of the manufacturer, and entries in the personal record card for the issuance of PPE;
• an indicator that assesses the availability of timely inspection of serviceability (testing) of personal protective equipment in accordance with regulatory documents, as well as manufacturers’ recommendations;
• an indicator that evaluates the instructing of workers on the rules for using PPE in the workplace, taking into account the characteristics of technological processes, the simplest ways to check their functionality and serviceability, as well as organizing training on their use, etc.

Taking into account the above, we can conclude that the current system in Russia for protecting workers from the effects of harmful production factors using PPE provided according to standard standards needs to be improved in order to increase the effectiveness of PPE and the efficiency of their use by workers. After all, the main task when issuing PPE to an employee is not at all to reduce the class (subclass) of working conditions in relation to the harmful production factor as such present at his workplace. It consists of organizing the process of providing personnel with PPE in such a way that the employee receives high-quality and comfortable PPE that reduces the negative impact of harmful and (or) dangerous factors in the working environment and the labor process on his health and safety.