The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 is 40 years old this summer!
To remind readers, this Act was implemented in the summer of 1974 and has been credited with being one of the most important pieces of legislation in the health and safety mission to keep workers safe and protected.
Philip Johnston, writing for The Telegraph, believes the Act has saved as many as 5000 lives since it was implemented.
Prior to the Act, an estimated 700 employees were dying every year, and the number of injuries is in the hundreds of thousands. This number has reduced to 148 injuries for 2013. Mr Johnston compares this number to the number of fatalities in Qatar. To build the World Cup stadium in Qatar for 2022, since 2012 there have been approximately 500 deaths.
The Act itself has been invaluable, no doubt about that, however it is one of the more commonly complained about pieces of legislation. Incidents where England flags have been removed due to "Health and Safety" have left members of the public fuming, however, are such measures truly a matter of Health and Safety?
The bulk of the Act refers mainly to high standards of safety measures to be in place at workplaces, and the majority of these measures are common sense. The Act exists only to ensure those sensible measures are used. To go against this Act is arguably done out of recklessness. It is much easier to take a flag down from scaffolding or to ensure wet floors are signposted, than it is to explain to a worker why they have been hospitalised for tripping or slipping, after all.
