UK health and safety legislation: the guide to what applies to you

UK health and safety law is one Act and a long list of regulations sitting underneath it. Most people only ever need to know which ones apply to the work they actually do, so this is a plain guide to the main pieces, what each one asks of an employer, and where the training that satisfies it comes in.

One thing to say up front: this is a summary written to help you work out what you are dealing with. It is not legal advice, and where something matters, read the regulation itself on legislation.gov.uk or the HSE guidance that goes with it.

Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974

The parent Act. Everything else hangs off it. It puts a general duty on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of their employees, and to conduct the business so that people who are not employees are not exposed to risk.

“So far as is reasonably practicable” is the whole of the argument in most prosecutions. It means weighing the risk against the time, trouble and cost of controlling it, and it is a high bar: the cost has to be grossly disproportionate to the risk before doing nothing is defensible.

• Section 2: duties to employees, including safe plant, systems of work, training and supervision
• Section 2(3): a written health and safety policy once you have five or more employees
• Section 3: duties to people who are not your employees, which covers contractors, visitors and the public
• Section 7: every employee must take reasonable care of themselves and others, and co-operate with their employer
• Section 8: nobody may intentionally interfere with anything provided for health and safety
• Section 9: you cannot charge an employee for anything you are legally required to provide

Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999

The regulations that turn the Act’s general duty into a set of things you have to actually do. If you only read one set, read this one.

• Suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the risks to employees and to others, recorded in writing once you have five or more employees
• Appoint one or more competent people to help you comply, whatever your size
• Arrangements for planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review
• Health surveillance where the assessment identifies a need
• Procedures for serious and imminent danger, and for evacuation
• Information, training and co-operation, including with other employers sharing the site
• Specific assessment for new and expectant mothers and for young people

Schedule 1 sets out the general principles of prevention, which is the hierarchy of controls in legal form: avoid risks, evaluate what cannot be avoided, combat them at source, and give collective protective measures priority over individual ones.

Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992

The basics of the building people work in: ventilation, a reasonable temperature, lighting, cleanliness, enough room, suitable workstations and seating, safe traffic routes, windows that can be cleaned safely, toilets, washing facilities and drinking water.

Unglamorous, and frequently the first thing an inspector notices.

Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992

Applies where somebody uses display screen equipment as a significant part of their normal work. You have to assess the workstation, reduce the risks, plan the work so there are breaks or changes of activity, and provide an eye and eyesight test on request, paying for basic corrective appliances where they are needed specifically for screen work.

It applies to laptops and to home workers using them, which is where a lot of assessments quietly stopped being accurate after 2020. Our DSE eLearning covers the assessment itself.

Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, amended 2022

PPE has to be provided free where a risk cannot be adequately controlled by other means, has to be suitable for the risk and the wearer, has to be compatible where more than one item is worn, and has to be maintained, stored and replaced.

The 2022 amendment extended the duties to limb (b) workers, which in practice means a lot of casual, agency and gig arrangements that were previously outside the regulations are now inside them.

Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER)

Any equipment used at work, from a hand tool to a production line. It must be suitable for the job, maintained in efficient working order, inspected where safety depends on the installation or on deterioration, and used only by people who have been trained. Dangerous parts must be guarded, and controls, isolation and stop devices must be adequate.

Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER)

Sits alongside PUWER for anything that lifts. Lifting equipment must be strong and stable enough, positioned to minimise risk, marked with its safe working load, and subject to thorough examination: at least every six months for equipment that lifts people and for accessories, and at least every twelve months for everything else, or in line with an examination scheme.

Lifting operations have to be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out safely.

Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992, amended 2002

Avoid hazardous manual handling so far as is reasonably practicable. Where you cannot avoid it, assess it and reduce the risk of injury to the lowest level reasonably practicable. The assessment looks at the task, the load, the working environment and the individual, which is where the TILE prompt comes from.

There is no legal maximum weight. Anyone who tells you there is has confused the guideline figures in the HSE’s filter with a limit. Manual handling training is the usual way of evidencing the individual capability part.

Work at Height Regulations 2005

A clear hierarchy of its own: avoid work at height where you reasonably can, use work equipment or other measures to prevent falls where you cannot avoid the work, and where the risk of a fall remains, use equipment to minimise the distance and consequences.

There is no minimum height at which the regulations bite. A fall from a low platform onto a spike is still a fall. See our working at height awareness training.

Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH)

Prevent exposure to substances hazardous to health, and where prevention is not reasonably practicable, control it adequately. That means assessment, control measures, maintenance and testing of those measures, monitoring, health surveillance where appropriate, and information, instruction and training.

Local exhaust ventilation provided under COSHH needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. COSHH awareness training covers the assessment and the safety data sheet.

Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012

Anyone who may disturb asbestos in the course of their work must have suitable information, instruction and training. The duty to manage asbestos in non-domestic premises sits under regulation 4 and falls on whoever has responsibility for maintenance and repair.

Training splits three ways: awareness, non-licensed work and licensed work. Our UKATA asbestos courses cover the first two.

Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005

Assess and reduce noise exposure. The lower exposure action value is a daily or weekly personal exposure of 80 dB(A), at which you must provide information, training and hearing protection on request. The upper action value is 85 dB(A), at which you must reduce exposure by means other than hearing protection so far as is reasonably practicable, designate hearing protection zones and enforce their use. The exposure limit value, which must not be exceeded, is 87 dB(A) taking account of the protection given by the hearing protection.

Hearing protection is not a substitute for controlling noise at source. See our noise awareness training.

Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005

For hand arm vibration the exposure action value is 2.5 m/s² A(8) and the exposure limit value is 5 m/s² A(8). Above the action value you must bring in a programme of controls and health surveillance. Whole body vibration has its own values.

Electricity at Work Regulations 1989

Electrical systems must be constructed and maintained so as to prevent danger. Work on or near a system must be carried out so as to prevent injury, and nobody may work on a live conductor unless it is unreasonable for it to be dead, it is reasonable to work live, and suitable precautions are taken. Anyone doing the work must have the technical knowledge or experience to prevent danger, or be supervised by somebody who has.

Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

Applies to virtually every non-domestic premises in England and Wales. The responsible person must carry out a fire risk assessment, record the significant findings, put general fire precautions in place, appoint competent people to assist, provide information and training, and plan for an emergency.

Amended and strengthened by the Fire Safety Act 2021, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022, which tightened recording and co-operation duties. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own regimes. Fire warden training covers the practical end of it.

RIDDOR 2013

Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences. The responsible person must report certain work related incidents to the enforcing authority.

• Deaths and specified injuries, reported without delay and followed by a report within ten days
• Injuries to workers that leave them unable to do their normal work for more than seven consecutive days, reported within fifteen days
• Injuries to people who are not at work where they are taken from the scene to hospital for treatment
• Certain occupational diseases, once you have a written diagnosis
• Specified dangerous occurrences, which are near misses with the potential to cause serious harm
• Records kept of over three day incapacitation, even though those are not reportable

Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981

Provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel so that employees who are injured or taken ill at work receive immediate attention. There are no fixed ratios. What is adequate comes out of a first aid needs assessment that looks at your hazards, your headcount, your layout, your shift pattern and how far you are from help.

Where the assessment calls for a qualified first aider, that means First Aid at Work or Emergency First Aid at Work, with a three year certificate.

Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015

The framework for construction projects, allocating duties to the client, the principal designer, the principal contractor, designers, contractors and workers. It covers pre-construction information, the construction phase plan, the health and safety file and welfare provision from day one.

Site management qualifications like SMSTS are built around it, and CDM awareness is a sensible starting point for a client or designer who has inherited a duty they did not expect.

Employers’ Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969

Most employers must hold employers’ liability insurance of at least five million pounds with an authorised insurer, and display or make available the certificate. The practical minimum offered by most insurers is ten million. A handful of employers, mainly some family businesses and public organisations, are exempt.

Health and Safety Information for Employees Regulations 1989

Display the approved health and safety law poster where employees can read it, or give each of them the equivalent leaflet. It has to name the competent person and the enforcing authority.

Working Time Regulations 1998

Not enforced by the HSE for the most part, but it belongs in any list of what an employer has to get right. A 48 hour average working week, which an adult worker can opt out of in writing; 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave; daily and weekly rest; a rest break where the shift is longer than six hours; and limits on night work. Young workers get stronger protections and cannot opt out of the weekly limit.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025

Known as Martyn’s Law. It introduces duties on those responsible for qualifying public premises and events to consider terrorist threats and put proportionate measures in place, with a standard tier and an enhanced tier depending on capacity. There is an implementation period before enforcement begins, and the Security Industry Authority is the regulator.

NEBOSH have built two certificates around it, and we run both the standard and enhanced duty courses.

Working out what applies to you

The list above is long, and no business is subject to all of it in equal measure. The practical route is the same one the law itself takes: assess what you actually do, work out which hazards are present, and let that tell you which regulations bite.

• Start with a risk assessment of the work as it is genuinely carried out
• Write the policy and the arrangements to match, not to match a template
• Identify the training each duty implies and who needs it
• Record what you decided and why, including what you ruled out
• Review it when the work, the equipment, the people or the law changes

If you would rather have somebody go through it with you, that is what our health and safety consultancy is for. If you would rather learn it properly yourself, IOSH Managing Safely is the standard for managers and the NEBOSH National General Certificate is the one most health and safety roles ask for.