With the new international occupational health and safety management system standard, ISO 45001, expected to be published in October 2016, many organizations currently certified to OHSAS 18001 will be looking closely at the development of the standard before deciding if ISO 45001 is right for them.
For organizations currently using a management system based on OHSAS 18001, adoption of ISO 45001 will allow for easier integration with existing management systems such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, which use Annex SL as a common high-level structure.
It is also hoped that organizations using OHSAS 18001 will see ISO 45001 as an opportunity to further integrate occupational health and safety into their overall organizational processes.
Commenting on the new standard, Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Limited (LRQA) System and Governance Manager Steve Williams, said: “The development of ISO 45001 will help organizations to minimize the risk of harm to all those working on its behalf.”
Further to this, Williams said that ISO 45001 is being developed while taking into account the complex and varied needs of a global marketplace that currently uses a range of standards to manage occupational health and safety risks.
“The new standard will make it easier for organizations to align their existing management system without conflicting with any existing documentation or processes,” Williams said.
As ISO 45001 is a new standard, LRQA said it will work collaboratively with organizations to develop an effective plan to support any move from OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001.
Global accreditation governing body, the International Accreditation Forum, is working on a set of migration criteria which will take into account existing certification against OHSAS 18001, for those organizations wishing to adopt the new standard.