Workers’ Memorial Day: why HSE funding matters

Posted on May 7, 2026

Every year on 28 April, Workers’ Memorial Day gives us pause.

It is a day to remember the men and women who left for work and never came home, and those who did return but with injuries or illnesses that changed their lives forever. It is about families, colleagues and communities who live with the consequences of failures that were, in too many cases, preventable.

For those of us working in health and safety, this day matters because it reminds us why standards, inspections and regulation exist in the first place. They are lines of defence between people and harm.

Workers’ Memorial Day is often summed up in a simple phrase:

“Remember the dead – fight for the living.”

That sentiment feels particularly relevant this year.

A system under pressure

Recent reporting in Construction News has highlighted renewed calls from politicians and industry groups, including the AllParty Parliamentary Group on Occupational Safety and Health (APPG OSH), for greater funding for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The concern is that years of cuts have reduced the regulator’s ability to carry out proactive inspections and enforcement activity.

According to the report, HSE funding has halved in real terms over the last decade, contributing to a one third reduction in inspector numbers since 2010. Enforcement action has declined alongside this.

In construction, around 1,100 immediate prohibition and improvement notices were issued in 2025, roughly half the number seen four years earlier and the lowest level in five years.

The concern being raised is practical, not political. Fewer inspectors mean fewer site visits, slower intervention where risks are identified, and a reduced deterrent for those prepared to cut corners.

Construction remains the industry with the highest number of workplace deaths, accounting for more than a quarter of all fatal injuries across all sectors last year, despite employing a far smaller proportion of the workforce.

Over the three years to March 2024, there were around 50,000 nonfatal injuries in construction, equivalent to one in 40 workers. Summarising the human cost of reduced regulatory capacity, APPG OSH chair Ian Lavery MP said:

“No one should lose their life or their health simply for doing their job.”

Workers’ Memorial Day forces us to confront that uncomfortable reality honestly. Effective regulation does not remove responsibility from employers, but it does set clear expectations, provide consistency, and act when those expectations are ignored.

Safety is shifting from guidance to duty

At the same time, we are seeing safety expectations become more precise, more personal, and more enforceable.

One example is the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025, which came into force on 6 April. These regulations require responsible persons in certain residential buildings to identify residents who may struggle to selfevacuate and to develop Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) tailored to their needs.

This represents a shift away from generic, “one plan fits all” approaches and towards recognising that real people experience risk differently. Layout, mobility, health and behaviour all matter when something goes wrong.

Importantly, these regulations were shaped by lessons learned from fatal incidents and public inquiries. They exist because people died, and because existing systems failed to protect them.

That connection between remembrance and regulation sits at the heart of Workers’ Memorial Day.

Remembering why this matters

Health and safety is sometimes caricatured as obstruction or inconvenience. But Workers’ Memorial Day reminds us that behind every statistic is a story: a fall from height rushed because of programme pressure; an evacuation plan that assumed mobility that wasn’t there; a risk assessment that existed on paper but nowhere else.

Standards rarely collapse overnight. They erode gradually through funding decisions, reduced oversight and stretched capacity. Those choices may feel distant from site, but their effects are felt where work actually happens.

Fighting for the living

For employers and duty holders, Workers’ Memorial Day is a prompt to ask whether systems work in reality, not just in theory. It means recognising where guidance has become law, acting early rather than waiting for enforcement, and understanding that safety culture is sustained not by intent alone, but by competence, resources and accountability.

Workers’ Memorial Day is not about dwelling on the past. It is about using what has already been paid for – often at the highest cost – to prevent the same failures from repeating.

The message is straightforward: the safest outcomes come when responsibility is shared by employers, by professionals, and by a properly resourced regulator.