Responsibilities of a Face Fit Tester

Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE) fit testing should be carried out by a competent person.

Face Fit testers have duties under Health and Safety at Work legislation because if not conducted properly the wearer could be exposed to substances hazardous to health due to facepiece leakage.  

A Face Fit tester should have adequate knowledge and have received adequate instruction and training in the following areas: 

• Selection of adequate and suitable RPE
• Examination of RPE and the ability to identify poorly maintained facepieces
• Ability to correctly fit a facepiece and perform pre-use wearer-seal checks
• Ability to recognise a poorly fitting facepiece
• Awareness of external factors that may affect the fit of the facepiece or the fit test result
• The purpose and applicability of fit testing
• The differences between, and the appropriate use of, QNFT and QLFT methods
• The purpose of the fit test exercises
• Preparation of facepieces for fit testing
• How to carry out diagnostic checks on the facepiece and the fit test equipment
• Capabilities and limitations of the fit test equipment
• How to perform a correct fit test with the chosen method
• Awareness and knowledge of how to prevent and correct problems during fit testing
• Interpretation of fit test results
• An understanding of the differences between fit factor, workplace protection factor (WPF), assigned protection factor and nominal protection factor (NPF)
• HSE ACOPs and guidance that deal with fit testing of RPE

The Face Fit tester should ensure that test facepieces are cleaned and disinfected before being used by different individuals. Test facepieces that cannot be adequately disinfected, for example, disposable half masks, should not be used by more than one individual. 

The Face Fit tester should ensure that the fit testing equipment is in good working order, properly set up and checked or tested before conducting the fit test. They should maintain and calibrate the fit test equipment in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions. 

The details of departmental Face Fit Testers must be recorded in departmental Responsible Persons Registers in riskNET and kept up-to-date. UCL trained Face Fit testers can only conduct fit tests on UCL colleagues.

> riskNET (UCL Login required)

Video Tutorial: Access and update Responsible Persons Register in riskNET

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> Powerpoint Tutorial: Access and update Responsible Persons Register in riskNET