'Dangerous' face masks seized from Mansfield shop

The confiscation – from an unnamed shoe shop in Mansfield – was part of a month-long campaign to tackle mis-labelled masks.

Masks which provide a lower level of protection than they advertise can effectively leave the wearers with a false sense of security, for example, a cloth face covering advertised as PPE.

The fear is care home workers would take undue risks, in the belief they were protected by the masks.

Around 1,000 ‘surgical masks’, which were in fact just face coverings, were seized by officers from the shoe shop.

Matthew Tuft, trading standards officer, said: “They were described as EU-approved surgical masks, but they hadn’t had any EU safety checks carried out on them.

"They were Chinese safety regulations which were on the box which were misleading.

“That one shop was also advertising the surgical qualities of the masks, and that they could deliver to care homes and health practices, doctors surgeries and GPs.”

The owners of the shop were told to relabel them so they could be legally sold as face coverings.

As well as door-to-door enquiries, officers have also been scouring websites selling masks, and reported around 20 sellers to local authorities and health industry watchdogs.

Fiona Needham, a team manager at trading standards, said officers were aiming to educate and work with businesses in the county.

She said the products frequently arrived mis-labelled by the manufacturer, meaning just displaying the products in a shop or online could be problematic to customers.

She added: “With COVID being in everyone’s mind, and with the requirement now to wear face coverings in shops and buses, we knew there would be an opportunity for mis-selling to the public by traders who might act a bit unscrupulously.

"So we wanted to keep people safe as much as possible.

“Masks and face coverings is a very complicated area.

"It sounds really easy but it’s very complicated in terms of the regulations that cover them and the bodies that govern them and enforce the regulations.

“So you can have surgical masks which the NHS will use, right down to face coverings you can make yourself, and there’s a lot in between.

“So what we’re looking at is how these products are being described, and whether the public are being misled into buying a mask of face coverings that they think has got more qualities than it actually has.”

Mr Tuft said masks which are described as ‘surgical’ or ‘protective’ have to meet safety requirements.

He added: “People might put themselves more at risk if they think their mask is more superior in terms of its effectiveness.

“If you’ve got a face covering it protects other people from the wearer, whereas if you’ve got personal protective equipment it protects the wearer from other people.

"That’s why it’s regulated heavily.”

Mrs Needham added: “As with any product we’d advise to buy from a reputable trader, so at least then people have some trust in that product”