100 Years of Occupational Health and Safety at the Health and Safety Laboratory: Lessons for the future

Introduction
A century ago, 1000 people died every year in Britain in coal mining accidents, and many more died from the health consequences of working with coal. In response, the Government established a laboratory, now called the Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL), to research safety in coal mines. It was established as a national asset, focusing on the development of practical solutions to workplace health and safety problems, by multidisciplinary teams, transferring the knowledge generated to those needing it. A century later, these principles still hold good. Today, HSL undertakes work on occupational health and safety (OSH) issues in sectors ranging from agriculture, manufacturing, construction, healthcare, and the chemicals industry, to nanotechnology, and emerging energy technologies. Multi-disciplinary teams bring together human factors specialists, occupational health care professionals, engineers and specialists in the physical sciences ranging from biological monitoring, and immunology, to epidemiology.

Methods
HSL’s work falls into three categories: 1) securing justice by learning lessons from workplace investigations; 2) enabling innovation by researching new approaches to risk reduction, and foresight on emerging risks; and 3) supporting the present and helping to improve national productivity.

Results
Examples include:

Development of:
• the ‘patient journey’ for occupational asthma and a national Standard of Care;
• tests for sensitisation to workplace agents and their use to demonstrate a cause-effect relationship between exposure and biological response; and
• diagnostic tools for hand-arm vibration syndrome to better understand case management, and risk control.

Collaborative research into the occupation burden of cancer in Britain – improving for instance, understanding of the interaction between silica, smoking, and lung cancer.The importance of biological monitoring to identify worker cohorts at greatest risk, and the efficacy of interventions.

Discussion
Examples of recent research illustrate how HSL’s founding principles, and a century of experience, are improving OSH today, and giving lessons for the future.