Page 17 - IGC BOOK

National Standards

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) U.S.

OSHA's aim is to ensure the health and safety of people in the American workplace by setting
and enforcing standards; providing training, outreach, and education; establishing partnerships;
and encouraging continual improvement in workplace safety and health.

OSHA and its state partners have over 2000 inspectors, as well as complaint discrimination
investigators, engineers, physicians, educators, standards writers, and other technical and
support personnel spread throughout the country. OSHA establishes protective standards,
enforces them, and reaches out to employers and employees through technical assistance and
consultation programs.

Nearly everyone who works in the U.S. comes under OSHA's jurisdiction (except miners,
transportation workers, many public employees, and the self-employed). Other users and
recipients of OSHA services include occupational safety and health professionals, the academic
community, lawyers, journalists, and personnel of other government entities.

OSHA aims to ensure worker safety and health in the United States by working with employers
and employees to create improved working environments. Since it launched in 1971, OSHA has
helped to cut workplace fatalities by more than 60 per cent and occupational injury and illness
rates by 40 per cent.

The Health and Safety Executive

The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for the regulation of almost all the risks
to health and safety as a result of workplace activities. Their mission is to protect people by
ensuring the control of risk in the workplace. This is done through the enforcement of the Health
and Safety Work Act and other relevant statutory provisions.

The HSE covers health and safety in a variety of workplace sectors including nuclear plants,
mines, factories, farms, hospitals, schools, offshore gas and oil installations, the safety of the gas
grid and the movement of dangerous goods and substances, railway safety, and many other
aspects of the protection both of workers and the public. Local authorities are responsible to
HSE for enforcement in offices, shops and other parts of the services sector.

The duties of the HSE include protecting people in the UK against risks to health or safety from
workplace activities by conducting a sponsoring research, promoting training, providing an
information service and by putting forward proposals for new or revised legislation and
guidance. They also have a specific duty to maintain the Employment Medical Advisory Service
which provides advice on matters relating to occupational health.

ENSIGN| Unit IG1 – Element 1 – Why We Should Manage Workplace Health and 9
Safety