Babybear
As far as I can see the Real safety standards have not been helped one iota by the "elf & safety" in all the time that I have been in aviation, before the HSE we had the Factorys inspector. These guys normaly had a practical view to things and did not flood us with stupid rules that do little good for anyone.
As for insulting H & S employees it is not my intention, I just call it as I see it after all they have done exactly nothing to improve my working enviroment, and at the same time slowed the job down with shed loads of stupid and pointless paperwork.
The bottom line is that H & S is an industry that is out of control and spending most of it's time inventing things to give it,s self something to do. Perhaps I have just been unlucky but all the "elf & safety" have done for me is make it harder to teach the people new to the industry to look out for danger and think about the results of actions that they might take by bringing a "safety first" attitude into disrepute.