Health and Safety Executive

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the independent regulator for work-related health and safety in Great Britain. The purpose of the Health and Safety Executive is "to prevent work related death, injury, or ill-health. It supports businesses by supplying free guidance and advise and helps employers to manage risks correctly. Their desired effect is increasing productivity, supporting the economy, and helping form a fairer society. It uses science as the basis for protecting people in the diverse environments in which people work".

The main things that the HSE do include:

• engaging a wide range of stakeholders and duty-holders as set out in HSE’s health strategy and sector action plans;
• working with local authorities as co-regulators and building relationships with influential trade associations, academics, unions, professional bodies, representative groups and government agencies;
• providing guidance and advice that meets the needs of users and encourages proportionate risk management;
• running insight-led campaigns to change behaviour and make workplaces safer and healthier;
• bringing together HSE’s world-leading science and research teams with policy and operational specialists to make evidence-based decisions.

When an event occurs, the HSE can launch an investigation into reportable injuries, diseases, dangerous occurrences and concerns raised by workers, the public or others. HSE does this to improve health and safety standards by determining the cause of the event, sharing lesson learnt by an occurrence, identifying what actions a duty holder needs to take to prevent any recurrence and where appropriate, gather evidence to bring a prosecution.