The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) was founded in 1945, shortly after the end of World War 2, as a part of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). Initially it was an organisation for industrially based persons who had an interest in the health and safety of the workforce and in its first incarnation was known as the Institution of Industrial Safety Officers (IISO). The founding fathers of the organisation were a diverse group of people many with engineering or military backgrounds, all with a desire to improve the conditions of the workforce and to reduce the number of accidents occurring within the manufacturing and construction industries within the UK. The first of the branches in the UK was based in the heavily industrialised West Midlands of England but soon spread to other areas of the country. IISO changed its name to IOSH1 in 1980 to reflect the broader nature of safety and health practice.
A similar organisation arose from within the local authorities in the UK. This was known as the Institution of Municipal Safety Officers (IMSO). The two bodies, IOSH and IMSO, amalgamated in 1982 forming the premier safety and health orientated organisation in the UK.
Much of the demand for qualified health and safety practitioners came about as a result of the changes to the UK legislative framework that had occurred in 1974. A report had been commissioned by the government regarding the regulation of health and safety in the workplace, and a committee chaired by Lord Robens undertook this work. The Robens report recommended a change in the approach to how health and safety was dealt with in the workplace by using a goal setting approach rather than the existing prescriptive legislation. The Robens Report was the basis of the UK's Health and Safety at Work Etc Act, 19742 which became statute law on 1 January 1975. Workplaces now needed practitioners who were able to interpret and recommend good practice rather than be 'policemen' of prescribed standards as previously. This required changes in the way health and safety practitioners needed to be trained and their competence assessed, and to the development of some national standards of health and safety practice.
At the time what both IOSH and IMSO had in common was a great deal of enthusiasm for health and safety issues but no laid down standards of practice for those people who held the position of Safety Officer within companies and organisations. Both the two independent bodies and later the combined IOSH addressed this lack by developing qualifications that would lead to named levels of membership of the Institution. Qualifications in health and safety were devised to bring some order, recognition and regulation to those individuals undertaking the generalist health and safety practitioners' role. These qualifications were eventually taken over by the National Examining Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH)3, which was founded, as part of IOSH in 1979, eventually becoming fully independent in 1992.
