Many hospitals – and indeed other healthcare providers – have recently reintroduced the mandatory wearing of masks in their buildings. This is in line with the government’s current guidance that such policy is a local decision based on local risk assessment.
However it is being reported (see this article in BMJ) that some providers are insisting everyone wear a single-use disposable (surgical) mask which they provide. Even if the person arrives wearing a high-filtration FFP2 or FFP3 mask they are being required to downgrade to the provider’s supplied mask before being allowed entry.
This is clearly a nonsense, especially when considering that many wearing the FFP2/FFP3 masks will be (or be visiting) the immunosuppressed undergoing, for example, chemotherapy.
I’m not aware that this is the practice at any of our local hospitals, although I’d be interested if it is.
There’s a lot more about this whole scenario in the BMJ article linked above.