At the time of its passage, the Act consolidated much legislation on workplace health, safety and welfare in Great Britain.

However, the Act continues to have a legal importance as cases of chronic workplace exposure to hazards such as industrial noise, as in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire deafness litigation,[3] or carcinogens[4] often extend back in time beyond the current legislation.

Though no such liability is stipulated by the Act itself, none is excluded and the facts could be such as to give rise to a cause of action in that tort.

The following sections were repealed in part and superseded by the Pressure Systems and Transportable Gas Containers Regulations 1989 on 1 July 1994:[20] The following sections were repealed and superseded by the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000 on 21 February 2000:[21] Sections 40 to 52 applied to fire safety and were repealed in 1976[16] when the Fire Precautions Act 1971 was extended to require fire certificates for a wide class of works premises.

[16] Sections 63 to 79 defined many specific regulations such as forbidding eating in places where lead or arsenic was processed (s. 64), and forbidding women and young people from working at foundries with lead or zinc, or "mixing or pasting in connection with the manufacture or repair of electric accumulators" (s. 74).

As of 2008, these have all been repealed and superseded by subsequent regulations save for section 69 where there is a residual power for an inspector from the Health and Safety Executive to restrict working in underground rooms in "factories" that are not "workplaces".

Sections 80 to 85 specified requirements for the statutory reporting of deaths, injuries and diseases that took place at work.

As with the British act, as of 2008 most of the provisions have been repealed and superseded by more modern legislation under the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 (SI 1978/1039) (NI 9) such as the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993.