OHSAS 18001
Occupational health and safety management systems
What is OHSAS 18001?
OHSAS 18001 was originally prepared as a proposed ISO standard but it has never had the formal recognition as a national or international standard. Despite this OHSAS is internationally accepted as the Health and Safety equivalent as what ISO 9001 is to
Quality and ISO 14001 is to the Environment. In fact OHSAS 18001 was developed in response to a demand to a Health and Safety Management System that can be integrated with 9001 and 14001.
OHSAS 18001is an effective health and safety management system can provide benefits to your customers and give you a competitive advantage. Other benefits make your organization more efficient, able to meet its legal requirements and help to improve staff moral by making the workplace a safer environment to work in. is generally accepted to all intents and purposes as the most robust Occupational Health and Safety Management System available to companies.
What are the benefits of OHSAS 18001 ?
- Minimizing the risks of production delays
- Providing a safe environment to do business
- Demonstrating your commitment to maintain an effective health and safety
- Improving your reputation and increasing your opportunities to gain new business
- Minimizing risks of downtime through accidents
- Demonstrating your commitment to meet legal obligations
- Possible cost savings from public liability insurance premiums
- Maintaining compliance to legal requirements
- Providing a robust system to maintain and continually improve health and safety
OHSAS 18001:2007 Standard Requirements
The following key areas are addressed by OHSAS 18001
Hazard identification, risk assessment and determining controls
Legal and other requirements
Objectives and OHS program(s)
Resources, roles, responsibility, accountability and authority
Competence, training and awareness
Emergency preparedness and response
The importance of “health” has now been given greater emphasis.
OHSAS 18001 now refers to itself as a standard, not a specification, or document, as in the earlier edition. This reflects the increasing adoption of OHSAS 18001 as the basis for national standards on occupational health and safety management systems.
Significant improvement in alignment with ISO 14001:2004 throughout the standard,
and improved compatibility with ISO 9001:2000.
It is now considered that such “damage” is not directly related to occupational health and safety management, which is the purpose of this OHSAS Standard, and that it is included in the field of asset management. Instead, the risk of such damage having an effect on occupational health and safety should be identified through the organization’s risk assessment process, and be controlled through the application of appropriate risk controls.
Management of change is now more explicitly addressed.
A new clause on the Evaluation of compliance has been introduced, as per ISO 14001:2004
OHSAS 18001 has been changed to become ISO 45001
ISO 45001:2016 is the new international standard for occupational health and safety (OHS) management systems and has replaced the existing OHSAS 18001:2007 standard.