Our AllergyWise® for Workplaces course is designed to ensure all staff in a workplace or business are allergy aware, can recognise the signs of a serious allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) and have the confidence to safely manage a reaction.
In the UK, 1-2% of the adult population have allergies and intolerances. Therefore, it’s important for employers and employees to work together to create a safe working environment for people with allergies. Whether the workplace is an office, healthcare setting, university, retail, or outdoor working environment, managing allergens is important not only for employees but also volunteers, students, and contractors.
Our AllergyWise® for Workplaces course is designed to ensure all staff in a workplace or business are allergy aware, can recognise the signs of a serious allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) and have the confidence to safely manage a reaction.
If an employee has serious allergies, below are some ideas of how you can help keep them safe at work. This will depend on the person’s allergy and their reaction history, so you should communicate directly with your employees with allergies to find out how you can best support them.
For employees with environmental allergies, such as house dust mite allergy, animal allergy, mould allergy or hay fever, here are some further points to consider:
If you have an allergy, we recommend speaking with your employer about your allergies when you accept the position, so that they can carry out a workplace risk assessment and create a safer working environment for you.
We don’t typically recommend complete bans of any food allergens because they can be very difficult to enforce, may lead to a false sense of security and cannot guarantee an allergen-free environment. People can be allergic to many food allergens other than nuts, for example fish and egg, and it would be impossible to ban them all. We recommend an allergy awareness and risk assessment approach. Workplaces should carry out an individual risk assessment for any employee with an allergy and put appropriate measures in place to reduce the risks as far as possible. Every workplace is different, but this may include extra cleaning measures or adjustments of the timings and locations of breaks and meals if necessary.
Eating at desks is common practice in many workplaces and would be difficult to ban. If you sit near to a colleague with a food allergy, it’s important to have an understanding of cross-contamination risks and you shouldn’t eat allergens in their workspace. It may also not be appropriate for an employee with food allergies to ‘hot desk’.
No. Washing your hands is proven to remove more allergens than using antibacterial hand sanitisers.
Assistance dogs must be permitted access and it is the responsibility of the employer to put in place any measures that are necessary to keep the employee with the allergy safe. This could include measures such as the employee not being in the room/building at the time of the visit and implementing cleaning measures after the visit.
Regulation 238 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 allows for adrenaline to be administered by anyone for the purpose of saving a life in an emergency.
Signs of improvement should be seen fairly rapidly – usually within minutes. If there’s no improvement, or the symptoms are getting worse, then an injection with a second adrenaline auto-injector should be given after five minutes.
Any one or more of the following symptoms may be present – these are often referred to as the ABC symptoms.
AIRWAY -swelling in the throat, tongue or upper airways (tightening of the throat, hoarse voice, difficulty swallowing)
BREATHING – sudden onset wheezing, breathing difficulty, noisy breathing
CIRCULATION – dizziness, feeling faint, sudden sleepiness, tiredness, confusion, pale clammy skin, loss of consciousness
Other symptoms that might be present include:
These symptoms can also happen on their own. If you don’t have the ABC symptoms, the reaction is likely to be less serious and is not the same as anaphylaxis but watch carefully in case ABC symptoms develop.
Unless your allergy may directly impact the role, you don’t need to bring it up at interview. We recommend letting your employer know on acceptance of the role to give them an opportunity to make reasonable adjustments to your working environment.
While it is always your choice whether to tell your colleagues about your allergy, we recommend that those who work closely with you are made aware. We recommend having a conversation in which you discuss your allergy, the signs and symptoms of an allergic reaction and what to do if you have an allergic reaction.
Our AllergyWise® for Workplaces course is designed to ensure all staff in a workplace or business are allergy aware, can recognise the signs of a serious allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) and have the confidence to safely manage a reaction.