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Health and Safety in Britain Since 1974

Health and Safety in Britain Since 1974. Christopher Sirrs, Centre for History in Public Health. christopher.sirrs@lshtm.ac.uk. Introduction. Why is ‘health and safety’ of interest to historians? Purpose of workshop Starting point Take stock of developments Hazard an analysis

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Health and Safety in Britain Since 1974

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  1. Health and Safety in Britain Since 1974 Christopher Sirrs, Centre for History in Public Health christopher.sirrs@lshtm.ac.uk

  2. Introduction • Why is ‘health and safety’ of interest to historians? • Purpose of workshop • Starting point • Take stock of developments • Hazard an analysis • In this presentation … • Major themes and issues • Role of history

  3. Historical research on H&S so far • Professional journals • Clinical texts • ‘Official’ or quasi-official histories • Socio-legal and policy studies (regulation, governance, industrial relations) • History (social history, labour history, history of STM) • Last 10–15 years • Focus on worker and workplace • Focus on heavy industry and industrial health • Generally neglected post-1974

  4. Mapping the Post-1974 Landscape Two broad, contrasting meta-narratives: • ‘Rise and rise’ of health and safety (health and safety gone mad) • Deterioration of health and safety regulation (health and safety gone sad(!))

  5. Mapping the Post-1974 Landscape (2) Source: HSE

  6. Mapping the Post-1974 Landscape (3) Other dominant narratives: • Rise of risk • As a way of evaluating hazards • As a framework for decision-making • As an ‘organising concept’ • Ascendance of hygienic model of health and safety, replacing biomedical • Changing nature of health and safety risks • Delocalisation • Increasing focus on wider public and environment

  7. Health and Safety in Britain Before 1974 • 19th century origins • Organic evolution: multiple regulatory systems covering separate industries and processes • Focus on physical environment • Focus on safety over health • Prescriptive • Overlap and duplication • Blind spots • Redundancy / atavism • Excessive legislation • ‘Apathy’

  8. The 1974 Reforms • HSW Act passed 31 July 1974 • Implemented recommendations of 1970–72 Robens Committee • Single Act • Emphasis on self-regulation • Important to not to view these changes in isolation

  9. The Changing Landscape Since 1974 Social Political/ economic Epidemiological

  10. Pressures on HSE Source: HSE; Office for National Statistics

  11. The Role of History • Demystification • Contextualization • Challenging or elaborating popular, official and prevailing narratives • Unearthing motives and agendas. • Humanising the ‘regulator’ • Importance of archive research and oral history • Need to embrace wide views, not only those of regulator (HSC/E)

  12. Concluding Comments • The development of health and safety regulation in Britain since the HSW Act has been complex and multi-faceted. It is dangerous and misleading to reduce this history to a single element. • It is necessary to look at factors external to the system (e.g. wider economic and political trends) as well as ‘internal’ (e.g. laws, institutions, philosophies, organisational factors). • Success or failure of the ‘system’ as a whole is difficult to determine objectively • Academics have often been preoccupied with normative concerns about what the system should be like as opposed to describing what the system is like and explaining how it has come to be so; • History can play a crucial role in the latter.

  13. Thank you @chrissirrs www.chrissirrs.com christopher.sirrs@lshtm.ac.uk www.lshtm.ac.uk/history This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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