The Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) were commissioned by the HSE to gather evidence from semi-structured interviews with experts that supports features associated with ‘effective health and safety management’. In this instance 'effective health and safety management' is defined as practices that contribute to the effective control and sustained
reduction in incidents that have the potential to result in acute and chronic deleterious effects to employees and other exposed persons. This is referenced to the following model of risk management:
- Knowing what the risks are, and what in general should be done about them
- Planning, prioritizing and implementing risk controls
- Ensuring that risk controls are effective and sustained
- Reviewing and learning

More specifically, the objectives of the exercise were:
(i) To collate the opinions from a range of experts regarding the evidence supporting the features associated with ‘effective health and safety management’.

With the specific aim of:
(ii) Contributing to the building of an agreed, practical, evidence-based model of
effective management of health and safety.