The introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974 completely changed health and safety management in the UK. Before then, legislation was very prescriptive; since then it has focused more on setting goals.
Today, health and safety management systems are based on self-regulation. In effect this works through a process of risk assessment that allows organisations to identify and control the risks which arise from their activities.
Since 1974, there has been increasing emphasis on HSE management standards created via management systems that have developed from ISO 9000 for quality, ISO 14001 for environment, and HSG65 and OHSAS 18001 for health and safety. Today, management of health and safety at work regulations is associated with a trend towards integrated management systems (IMS) as the formats of the different standards have converged.