Occupational health and safety management ISO 45001

Occupational health and safety management systems.  Requirements specifies requirement for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, to enable an organization to control its OH&S risks and improve its performance.

It does not state specific OH&S performance criteria, nor does it give detailed specifications for the design of a management system, which is given in BS 8800:2004.  ISO 45001 is the global implementation of OHSAS and has the status of an International standard. ISO 45001 supersedes BS OHSAS 18001:2007 and OHSAS 18001:1999.

There have been a number of significant changes to the standard since the first edition was published in 1999. The changes reflect the widespread use and experience of the standard in more than 80 countries, and by approximately 16,000 certified organizations

Principal amongst the changes are much greater emphasis on "health" rather than just "safety", and significantly improved alignment to ISO 14001 (to enable organizations to develop "integrated management systems").

Other important information
For those organizations that have already achieved certification to OHSAS 18001, or are in the final stages of achieving it, a two year "transition" period has been agreed, in order to allow them to make the change to using the new standard. The transition period will end on 1 july 2009. We do not believe that this will be a difficult process for such organizations