Always wash your hands with soap and water or use a hand sanitiser. This ensures your hands are clean before touching the face mask. Inspect the mask before wearing it to ensure it’s not damaged or broken, but always pick it up by the fastenings, rather than the mask itself.

Once you’re satisfied that the mask is not damaged, you should work out which way up it goes. Bring the mask up to your face and secure it. For ear loops, simply hang these over the tops of your ears. For headbands, loop these over your head and adjust so that they sit comfortably. For ties, secure with a bow.

Pinch the stiff section across your nose until it moulds comfortably. Make sure your mask is fitting comfortably and covering your nose and mouth (adjust if necessary). Wash your hands again to complete the fighting of the mask.

It is extremely important that you don’t touch it or the rest of your face. Germs can be spread through touching contaminated surfaces and then touching your nose, eyes or mouth so face masks can act as a good reminder not to do this.

Despite wearing a face mask it is extremely important that you still practice adequate social distancing and hand-washing.

This is one of the most important steps to do. Once you’re ready to remove your face mask BEFORE removing the mask, wash your hands with soap and water or use a hand sanitiser gel. Never touch the front of your face mask as this is the part that’s susceptible to contamination.

Only touch your mask by the fastening such as ties, headbands or ear loops and once you’ve released them, lift the mask away from your face to remove. Again, don’t touch the outside of the mask as it could be contaminated from others. And don’t touch the inside of the mask as it could be contaminated by you (and then transferred to others).