Skin Awareness Training

The skin awareness training is aimed at raising awareness of workers to the issues concerning skin in the workplace. It is designed to provide training on the skin, use of PPE, highlight those individuals with potential problems, and raise worker awareness on the need to look after their skin.

• Maximum 1 hour participation
• 10 workers per session
• 10 sessions per day

Format

There is a usual format to the sessions and day, however this can be tailored to suit your workplace. The format is usually a short audio-visual presentation (25 minutes) followed by a demonstration of glove donning and removal with a test for each worker 'can they remove their gloves without contaminating their skin?' and lastly skin condition measurements (moisture and water loss).

Audio-visual presentation

The Audio-visual presentation last around 25 minutes. Questions can be asked during the next two sections of the awareness day. The presentation covers:

• Skin physiology and functions
• Skin disease - focus on occupational skin disease
• Preventing skin disease - what to do
• Preventing skin disease - what not to do
• Importance of engineering controls
• PPE
• Skin care
• Monitoring skin (what the individual should do)

Glove demonstration and test

The participants are shown a demonstration of how to don and remove gloves. Each participant is then require to take part in the glove contamination test. We will bring a special light box to test the ability of workers to remove their gloves without contaminating their skin. You will need to provide them with the gloves they would usually wear.

Skin condition measurements

We will carry out skin condition measurements to indicate the condition of each participant's skin. This will include measurement of:

• Transepidermal water loss - skin barrier function
• Hydration - general skin condition

Individual advice will be given to each participant on skin care, work practices, glove use and other aspects of maintaining healthy skin both at work and at home.

Timings

Start times in the tables below can be altered to suit worker shifts

Section 1 = Audiovisual presentation

Section 2 = Glove demonstration and Skin condition measurements

G = Group

Each participant receives a simple leaflet giving advice on prevention of skin exposure and skin care both in work and at home. A short report is also prepared giving a breakdown of the result of the glove test and skin condition measurements and some recommendations on areas that might need a review of different aspects of skin management