By Jenny Byrne, mother and former editor of a Parenting Magazine.

If you've ever worked for a large company and found that your chair makes your back ache or your keyboard gives you terrible wrist pain, chances are one of the HR people will be round to help re-arrange your work area. But who's looking after you at home?

Being self-employed and working from home raises a range of health issues. In America for example, its Occupational Health and Safety Administration is telling employers that they're responsible for the health and safety standards of anyone who works for them at home, provided they are a PAYE employee. Potentially the same thing could happen here.

"When more than a couple of these bad habits creep into your daily work regime, you could find your health suffering."

Make sure you're doing the right thing by yourself - and anyone else who works for you at home or in an office - by following best practice in workplace health and safety.

A lot of this advice, which relates primarily to those using PCs, desks and phones for a large part of their working day, may seem perfectly obvious. But when more than a couple of these bad habits creep into your daily work regime, you could find your health suffering.

Posture

1. Adjust your seat height - this is important because if you sit too high or too low, you'll be forced to type with bent wrists or in a hunched position causing discomfort in wrists, arms, shoulders, neck or back.

2. Sit in front of your terminal and adjust the height of your seat so that your forearms are horizontal and wrists straight when your hands are on the keyboard. If your feet are not comfortable on the floor or there's pressure on the back of your thighs from the seat edge, buy a footrest.

3. When keying in your forearms should be at a 90-degree angle to your torso, so they're parallel with the desktop.

4. Your eyes should be roughly the same height as the top of the monitor.

The screen

1. Rest your eyes by looking into the distance for 30-40 seconds at frequent intervals, and take a screen break of ten minutes every hour.

2. Screens easily attract dust and become more difficult to read, so clean it regularly and if you use a filter, remember to clean the screen behind it.

3. If you get reflections and glare (from artificial light or windows), try re-angling the screen, and avoid sitting with the window or light directly in front or behind your screen as light from the side is less harsh. Also, don't forget your monitor's brightness and contrast buttons, which can be adjusted to suit lighting conditions.

4. Select colours which are easy on the eye - red text on a blue background or vice versa are known to play havoc with eyesight.

5. A monitor with flickering characters may need servicing or adjustment.

Workstation

1. If you're spending a lot of time reading hard copy then you may find a document holder will help you avoid awkward neck movements.

2. Make sure there's enough space under you desk to move your legs freely.

3. Allow enough space in front of the keyboard for resting hands and wrists when not keying. Keep a soft touch on keyboards and don't over stretch fingers.

4. Adjust your screen so it's directly in front of you, and ensure it's at least an arm's length away.

5. Move about! Sitting in the same position for hours at a time can cause aches and pains, whether you're driving a car, sitting in front of a PC or doing any work which involves staying in one place. Think ahead and break up your working day so that keying in is interspersed with appointments, meetings, phone calls.

6. When you can move about, consciously relax tense muscles, deep breathe and get any form of exercise you can, however small.

Four exercises which can be done while seated in front of your screen:

1. Stretch your neck by imagining someone is pulling on a piece of string attached to the top of your head. Hold for three seconds and repeat ten times.

2. Shrug your shoulders towards your ears, hold for two seconds and then lower your shoulders away from your ears as far as possible.

3. Interlock your fingers, palms facing away, and raise your arms above your head, stretching your hands to the ceiling. Hold for five seconds.

4. Sitting in your chair, firstly round your lower back into the back of the chair and then arch away from the back support to hollow your back.

The employer's obligation

The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 (which relate specifically to people using a computer for a large part of their working day), require employers to minimise the risks in monitor work by ensuring that workplaces are well designed.

For the self employed person using a client employer's workstation, under these regulations the employer has to assess and reduce risks and ensure the workstation complies with minimum health and safety requirements - see the HSE booklet Working with VDUs.

The regulations also apply to employees who work from home. However there's no obligation for employers to plan work breaks or to provide eye tests or training for the self-employed, who must also be responsible for the health and safety of their own workspace. They have no redress on those who they're doing work for, if an injury is incurred whilst undertaking that work.