What is the Health and Safety Executive?

Our mission, quite simply, is to protect people and reduce risks in the workplace. The facts below will tell you what a vital mission that is.

• Last year an estimated 27 million days were lost to British industry as a result of work place injury and work related ill health caused by work activities. 
• Last year more than 22,433 people suffered a major injury caused by work activities and an estimated 1.1 million people who had worked in the year suffered from work related ill health.
• 173 workers were killed at work last year. These are the facts. We want to achieve a record of workplace health and safety that leads the world.

These are the facts. We want to achieve a record of workplace health and safety that leads the world.

How we do it

There are many ways that we promote health and safety: by providing information, guidance and advice for example, as well as promoting training and commissioning research. On the legal side of things, we've developed a goal setting system of regulation - and of course, we also enforce the law.

As workplaces change, so do health and safety needs. It's a dynamic and evolving arena that's constantly presenting fresh challenges. So we are always looking at new, innovative and imaginative ways to build an effective health and safety culture in the UK: one that will protect people and save more lives.