There is both a legal and a moral duty upon the employer to take due and proper regard of any risks to health, safety or welfare to which their workforce are exposed.

Health and safety at work can best be defined as follows:

• The requirement for the organisation to establish and maintain a safe and healthy work environment, with reasonable access to necessary welfare facilities, so as to ensure the optimum physical and mental health of employees in relation to the foreseeable demands of work.
• Almost all UK health and safety law is governed by the phrase "so far as is reasonably practicable". This means that the employer must assess the relative costs and benefits of any health and safety measure and must implement that measure unless the costs (time, trouble and money) are grossly disproportionate to the benefits.
• "So far as is practicable" occurs less frequently and indicates an absolute duty. If it is technically possible to achieve the measure then this must be done without any regard to costs.