Enforcement of Health and Safety Regulations

Under an improvement notice , the HSE can demand that safety precautions be improved in the workplace. See Chapter 1, Enforcement of Health and Safety Regulations. 

This chapter does not discuss any state or local enforcement or regulatory agencies. However, sometimes state health and safety agencies will play a pivotal role in the investigation of an accident, the enforcement of health and safety related regulations, and the institution of enforcement actions, if any. 

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 also require all employers to undertake risk assessments with respect to health and safety at work (HSE 2001). During 2004 the West Dorset Hospitals NHS Trust received an HSE enforcement notice for failing to have a work-related stress policy or a risk assessment of work-related stressors. 

The HSW Act also established the Health and Safety Commission with responsibility for publishing specific health and safety regulations and the Health and Safety Executive which enforces the Act by means of an inspectorate with extensive powers that can lead to prosecution. It allows all employees rights to be represented, meaning that in all schools there will be a designated safety representative who has the right to receive appropriate training and access to information, release from timetable and time out of school to carry out their duties. These include ... 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) enforces the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974, the primary legislation governing occupational health and safety in the UK. The HSE is a nondepartmenlal public body with Crown status and is accountable to the ministers of the Department for Work and Pensions. The HSE regulates work-related health and safety in the UK in partnership with local authorities its mission is the prevention of workplace death, injury, and ill health. Within the HSE, the Health and Safety Laboratory is responsible for research, scientific, and forensic services, including technical support of investigations. 

The fire at Imperial Food Products was the worst industrial accident in North Carolina history. Outraged labor leaders, members of Congress, civil rights advocates, and others interviewed portrayed the loss of life as the needless result of laxly enforced health and safety regulations. During the 11 years the Hamlet, North Carolina, plant had... 

Contemporary health and safety regulation tends to draw more heavily upon the compliance rather than the deterrence approach UK safety regulators have always prioritised the provision of guidance and advice over prosecution (Carson 1970 1979 Hawkins 2002), and the same can be said of regulators elsewhere (see Chapter 2). The current tendency is for versions of risk-based regulation to be used, whereby enforcement resources are targeted at those regulated actors who are deemed... 

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