The increasingly litigious cultural atmosphere has brought health and safety to the forefront of most public and business decisions. This has been paralleled, however, by a growth in the availability of health and safety professionals, and also in better and more detailed health and safety information on the Internet. More help is available at .

Occupational health and safety measures can take many forms - from the management of physical risk in your place of work, to employee health and safety concerns about noise or stress levels.

The important thing for businesses is to have a plan for every possible health and safety situation that could arise, or that all could be feasibly predicted anyway.

Depending on your business area, there may be an organization that monitors the health and safety in your workplace - this particularly applies to dangerous locations such as railways, nuclear installations and mines, and to workplaces involved with vulnerable people, such as nursery schools, care homes and hospitals.

The occupational health and safety of these businesses will probably be monitored and checked regularly by an independent organization.

If such a group does not cover your place of work, it is recommended that you invest in a professional health and safety inspection. Alternatively you could appoint a permanent group of occupational health and safety experts, depending on the size and needs of your enterprise.

Public health and safety may be monitored by a government agency, or independent health and safety professionals may be employed to judge the health and safety of a prospective project or place of work.

Public health and safety should take into account both the health and safety of the public sector employees and of members of the general population whose health and safety may be affected by a project.