U.K.’s HSE Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Great Britain’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) celebrated its 50th Anniversary on January 1, half a century after its official launch on the first day of 1975. The HSE was established to enforce workplace health and safety legislation in the U.K. following the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which itself turned 50 on July 31, 2024. Mike Robinson, chief executive at British Safety Council, praised the important role that HSE has played in helping reduce the number of work-related deaths and injuries since its creation while commenting that “there is still much work to do” to prevent work-related deaths, which saw an increase in 2023/24 from the previous year. “Reversing this will require HSE to be given the resources it needs to ensure that there is no rowing back on the progress that has been made since the 1970s, and that the health, safety and wellbeing of workers continues to improve over the next 50 years.”