Health & Safety - The most feared and hated in all the land!

Being a health and safety practitioner feels a bit like being a pantomime villain, people like to boo comedically when you turn up and then as you walk around places you can see actual fear in people's eyes. I suppose I am bit like Jafar running around advising and influencing - this occurred to me whilst watching Aladdin - is this why people hate health and safety?

The truth is that this is all a misconception and it is born of the very early days of Health and Safety. When the Health and Safety at Work Act was first past, way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth in 1974, there were no trained health and safety practitioners, instead the job was awarded to the loudest mouth available. It only really originally existed within industries such as construction, engineering, manufacturing - you get the gist here, the heavy industry places that were full of the old boys club.

The Health and Safety officer of old times was loud and could get you sacked, and because little was given by the way of Health and Safety information they could use it as an excuse to get rid of anyone who didn't want to tow the company line good or bad. This lack of information or understanding of Health and Safety legislation stretched across to the Health and Safety officer themselves - they knew very little, those insecurities very often became solid armour in the form of arrogance.

In terms of working age 1974 is not actually long ago, and the modern workforce has people, particularly those in senior positions, who remember those darker ages of my beloved profession. People don't often speak well or much about Health and Safety nor do they write well about it. So I am here to change this perception. The truth is when I turn up I don't want anyone to be sacked - all I want is for business to improve, insurance costs to decrease, I definitely don't want any solicitor to get their hands on anyone's profit margin and most of all I want everyone to get home safely.