The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has been warned that its personal protective equipment (PPE) stockpile must be suitable for women, amid serious concerns over safety. Women's PPE is often simply men's equipment shrunk to a smaller size, which fails to fit women's bodies properly, rendering it completely unfit for purpose and potentially dangerous.
GMB Campaign and Charter
The GMB union has successfully ensured that up to 250,000 women will now be protected by having companies sign up to an inclusive PPE Charter. However, there are growing calls to expand this initiative to safeguard all frontline workers.
Survey Reveals Widespread Issues
According to a GMB survey, as many as 70% of women suffer from ill-fitting protective equipment, with tens of thousands feeling unsafe, embarrassed, and scared at work. Labour MP Kirsteen Sullivan, alongside GMB and Mel Bartlett, head of the GMB PPE Fit for All Campaign, have written to the UKHSA demanding action.
In their letter, they stated: “GMB has gathered evidence from frontline health workers, particularly women, disabled people and marginalised groups, showing a significant proportion cannot access PPE that adequately fits and protects. We believe this creates a foreseeable risk and has direct implications on the health and safety of the entire workforce and the population they serve. Ill-fitting PPE cannot be relied upon to keep the user protected from disease. This undermines infection prevention and control effectiveness, creating foreseeable risk for marginalised groups and a potential value for money issue if stockpiled equipment is not fit for purpose.”
Call for Review and Action
UKHSA has been urged to review its PPE standards, introduce fit-to-form requirements, and assess whether current assumptions around PPE fit create avoidable risk. Last year, this newspaper revealed that the previous Conservative government's failure to check the viability of PPE for up to two years cost taxpayers £762 million.
This comes as the UK prepares to develop a new national contact tracing system and build stockpiles of PPE as part of its £1 billion health protection strategy, aimed at improving the country’s readiness for future outbreaks, following lessons learned from the pandemic.
Political and Union Responses
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, Ms Sullivan added: “We’ve had no shortage of PPE scandals with previous governments; any new PPE stockpile must be value for money. £1bn is a huge sum of public money and our public services need to be able to reliably deploy this PPE. The UKHSA must put people at the heart of procurement and ensure PPE is truly fit for all.”
Ms Bartlett said: “If we are going to spend £1bn on PPE, we must make sure it fits the people who rely on it. Across the health sector, equipment such as masks and gloves are workers' last line of defence against infections and diseases. The UKHSA failing to procure equipment with a diverse workforce in mind risks repeating the disproportionate harm marginalised workers faced during the pandemic.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson responded: “The safety of NHS and social care staff is a priority for this government, and it is already a legal requirement that employers provide PPE that fits their workers correctly and meets their needs. PPE stockpiles include a range of sizes across all products. We are investing £1 billion in health protection across a range of measures including enhancing access to vaccines and improving pandemic surveillance systems, to ensure we are prepared for the next pandemic.”
