Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to issue further guidance to health and social care providers on (a) ensuring the availability of and (b) determining the clinical requirement for clear face masks for (a) service users and (b) staff in all settings during the covid-19 outbreak.

Clear face masks are currently being piloted and we are seeking feedback to help understand demand. This exercise will conclude soon. We will use the findings to inform our future procurement, but we already know that clear face masks are making a difference to the treatment of many individuals with hearing loss and other conditions.

It is critical that the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) meets equalities duties. As part of our efforts to collate PPE requirement data from across Government, departments have been asked to provide information on how potential inequalities have been considered; the demographics of both their workforce and the public their workforce face which has proved significant in the use of PPE; and incompatibilities or difficulties observed between any of the PPE used by their workforce. This will ensure the demand model reflects the different combination and size of equipment required to meet different user needs.