Guidance · Reviewed August 2026
What the term actually means in UK law, who carries the duty, and what it asks of employers and employees in practice.
The short answer
Health and safety is the legal duty to protect people from harm arising out of work — employees, contractors, visitors and the public. In Great Britain that duty comes from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and it falls on employers and employees both, though not equally.
Most definitions of health and safety describe good practice: training, equipment, procedures, emergency plans. All true, but it misses what makes the subject distinctive. Health and safety isn’t advice. It’s criminal law, enforced by the HSE and local authorities, with unlimited fines and imprisonment available on conviction. Understanding it starts with understanding who the law puts the duty on.
Why Health and Safety Matters
There are three answers, and most employers only think about one of them.
The human cost is mostly invisible
HSE’s figures for 2024/25 record 40.1 million working days lost to work-related illness and workplace injury in Great Britain. But the shape of that harm is the part worth pausing on:
1.9m
workers suffering work-related ill health
680,000
workers who sustained an injury at work
52%
of that ill health is stress, depression or anxiety
Nearly three times as many workers are made ill by their work as are injured by it, and over half of that illness is stress, depression or anxiety. Musculoskeletal disorders account for another 27%. Yet most workplace safety effort goes into the visible half — the guarding, the harnesses, the hi-vis. The word “health” comes first in the name of the Act for a reason, and it’s the half more often left unmanaged.
The legal cost is not a fine you budget for
Breaches are criminal offences, not civil ones. Sentencing is linked to turnover, so penalties scale with the size of the organisation, and the most serious offences carry unlimited fines and imprisonment. Under section 37, directors and senior managers can be prosecuted personally where an offence involved their consent, connivance or neglect — a conviction that attaches to the individual, not the company.
There is also a quieter cost. Failing to hold employers’ liability insurance, or to produce documents an inspector asks for, carries penalties of its own regardless of whether anyone was hurt.
The commercial cost is the one that shows up first
HSE puts the cost of injuries and ill health from current working conditions at £22.9 billion a year (2023/24 figures). Most employers never see a number like that; what they see is a lost contract. Increasingly, health and safety competence is a condition of bidding — accreditation schemes, principal contractor requirements, insurer questions at renewal. Businesses tend to discover the paperwork matters at the point a client asks for it.
That’s also the honest reason most people end up on a page like this one. Not an accident, but a tender document.
Where the Duty Comes From
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 is the primary statute. It applies across Great Britain to virtually every workplace and to almost everyone involved in work — employers, the self-employed, employees, people in control of premises, and those who design or supply work equipment. Northern Ireland has equivalent legislation under a 1978 Order.
The Act is deliberately written at a high level. It sets the standard; the detailed obligations sit in regulations made underneath it, such as the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, COSHH, and the regulations covering work at height, manual handling and display screen equipment.
“So far as is reasonably practicable”
This phrase appears throughout the Act and does most of the work. It means the duty isn’t absolute — you weigh the level of risk against the time, cost and effort of reducing it. Where the risk is serious, very little will count as disproportionate. Where it’s trivial, a costly control may not be required. It is not a licence to do nothing because something is expensive.
What the Act asks of employers
Section 2 places the central duty on employers: to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees. It then spells out particular areas that duty covers.
| Section | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 2(1) | The general duty — health, safety and welfare of employees at work. |
| 2(2) | Safe plant and systems of work; safe handling and storage of substances; safe premises and access; a safe working environment with adequate welfare facilities — and information, instruction, training and supervision. |
| 2(3) | A written health and safety policy, if you employ five or more people, brought to employees’ attention. |
| 3 | The same protection extended to people who aren’t your employees — contractors, visitors, volunteers and the public — where they’re affected by your work. |
| 9 | You cannot charge an employee for anything you’re legally required to provide in the interests of safety. PPE included. |
| 37 | Where an offence is committed with the consent, connivance or neglect of a director or senior manager, that individual can be prosecuted personally as well as the company. Connivance here means knowing about it and letting it continue. |
Two points employers routinely get wrong. Training is a legal requirement, not good practice — section 2(2)(c), reinforced by regulation 13 of the Management Regulations. And the duty follows the employee home: it applies wherever they’re working, which is why display screen equipment assessments extend to homeworkers.
What the Act asks of employees
The duty isn’t one-way, though it’s much lighter. Section 7 requires every employee, while at work, to take reasonable care for their own health and safety and that of anyone affected by what they do or fail to do — and to co-operate with their employer so far as is necessary for the employer to meet its own duties.
Section 8 goes further and applies to everyone, not just employees: no person shall intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse anything provided in the interests of health and safety. Wedging a fire door, disabling a machine guard, removing a barrier.
These are criminal duties. An employee who recklessly endangers colleagues, or deliberately interferes with safety equipment, can be prosecuted in their own right. Prosecutions of individuals are far less common than prosecutions of organisations, but they happen.
What It Looks Like in Practice
The Act sets a standard rather than a checklist, so what compliance looks like depends on the work. In almost every workplace, though, it comes down to the same sequence.
🔍
Find the risks
A risk assessment identifies what could cause harm and who might be harmed. Significant findings must be recorded once you employ five or more people.
🛠️
Control them
Remove the hazard where you can. Where you can’t, control it — by design, by procedure, and only then by PPE, which is the last resort rather than the first.
🎓
Make people competent
Information, instruction, training and supervision — at induction, on change of role, and when new equipment or risks appear. This is the section 2(2)(c) duty.
📄
Write it down
Policy, assessments, training records. The recording thresholds differ by duty and a few changed recently — see the full list of employer duties.
🗣️
Involve people
Employers must consult employees on health and safety — directly, or through elected or union-appointed representatives. Reporting hazards should be routine, not brave.
🔄
Review it
After an incident, a near miss, a change in process, or the arrival of new equipment. An assessment written once and filed is evidence of a system that isn’t running.
Health and Safety Training by Role
What training the Act requires depends entirely on the work and the role. These are the routes most UK employers use.
| If you need to… | Usual route |
|---|---|
| Give everyone a baseline | IOSH Working Safely, or a general health and safety awareness course. |
| Appoint a competent person | IOSH Managing Safely for most workplaces; the NEBOSH General Certificate where risk is higher or the role is formal. |
| Cover first aid | Level depends on a needs assessment — see first aid training. |
| Work on construction sites | SSSTS for supervisors and SMSTS for site managers — both CITB schemes. Plus CDM training where you have client or designer duties. |
| Enter engineering or process sites | CCNSG Safety Passport or SPA Passport, depending on the client. |
| Handle specific hazards | Asbestos, work at height, IPAF, PASMA and Ladder Association courses. |
| Cover mental health | Work-related stress is a health risk like any other — see mental health and wellbeing training. |
Not sure what applies to your workplace?
Work through it rather than guessing. The training matrix maps requirements by sector, hazard and job role — free, no account needed. The tools sit on envicourse.com, our course marketplace, and open in a new tab.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does health and safety mean?
In everyday use it means protecting people from harm at work. In UK law it means something narrower and stronger: a set of criminal duties, principally under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, requiring employers to protect employees and anyone else affected by their work, so far as is reasonably practicable.
Is health and safety training a legal requirement?
Yes. Section 2(2)(c) of the Act requires employers to provide information, instruction, training and supervision, and regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 repeats it. Failing to do so is a criminal offence. What training is needed depends on the work.
Can an employee be prosecuted, or is it only the employer?
Both. Section 7 places duties on employees to take reasonable care and co-operate with their employer, and section 8 makes it an offence for anyone to interfere with or misuse something provided for safety. Section 37 also allows directors and senior managers to be prosecuted personally where an offence involved their consent, connivance or neglect.
Does it apply to people who work from home?
Yes. The section 2 duty applies to employees wherever they work. That means assessing the risks of homeworking and controlling them so far as is reasonably practicable, including display screen equipment assessments.
Can my employer charge me for PPE or training?
Not for anything the law requires them to provide. Section 9 prohibits employers from charging employees for measures taken to comply with a statutory health and safety duty. Since April 2022 the PPE duties also extend to casual and agency workers, not just employees.
Does it apply to volunteers and contractors?
Volunteers aren’t employees, so the section 2 duties don’t apply to them directly. Section 3 does, though — it requires you to conduct your undertaking so that people who aren’t your employees aren’t exposed to risk. In practice that covers contractors, visitors, volunteers and the public.
Why is health and safety important?
Three reasons. People are harmed by work — HSE recorded 1.9 million workers suffering work-related ill health and 680,000 sustaining an injury in Great Britain in 2024/25, with 40.1 million working days lost between them. Breaches are criminal offences with unlimited fines available and personal liability for directors. And demonstrable competence is increasingly a condition of winning work, through accreditation schemes and client requirements.
Do I need a written health and safety policy?
If you employ five or more people, yes — section 2(3) requires it in writing and requires you to bring it to employees’ attention. Below five, you still need a policy for managing health and safety; you just don’t have to write it down. Note that the five-employee threshold no longer applies to fire risk assessments.
Related Guidance
General guidance only, reviewed against HSE guidance and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 in August 2026. Statistics from HSE, Health and Safety at Work: Summary Statistics for Great Britain, 2024/25. Envico is an independent training intermediary and is not affiliated with the HSE.