ISO 45001:2018 Explained

ISO 45001 is an international standard for workplace health and safety produced by non-governmental national and international standards committees.

It was released in March 2018 to replace the current standard (BS OHSAS 18001), which is being phased down. Businesses have three years to transition from the old to the new standard. ISO 45001 or other similar management standards aren’t needed by legislation, but they can help give a systematic framework for ensuring a safe and healthy workplace.

You’ll probably be able to demonstrate good risk management without a formal management system if your company is small or low-risk. A more straightforward and less bureaucratic approach, such as that suggested in the HSE’s guidance on health and safety made it easy, maybe more suited.

HSE Guidance on ISO 45001

ISO 45001 can assist your company in demonstrating compliance with health and safety regulations. However, it goes above what the law demands in several ways, so think twice about adopting it. If your company already has a well-developed health and safety management framework in place, or if you’re familiar with other management standards, ISO 45001 may be simple to implement. If your company is tiny and has less formal management systems, however, you may find it challenging to: analyse the standard’s requirements to determine what proportionate implementation entails. This is especially true if you’re implementing management standards to meet customer or contracting body supply chain needs.

The HSE is worried about the standard’s practical execution, including audit and certification, and if it can be easily tailored to function effectively for businesses of all sizes and levels of complexity in proportion to the risks they must manage. Contracting organisations and customers should consider if the supplier actually needs certification to 45001 or if they can demonstrate competence in health and safety management through other ways.

Learn more about how to use health and safety accreditation schemes on our ISO 45001 Introduction Training Course.

Observance of health and safety regulations

When assessing an organization’s compliance with health and safety law, assessors and auditors will continue to depend on a wide range of evidence and observations, not just whether they claim to fulfil the ISO 45001 standard or not.

Taking the approach of a management system

The HSE’s guidance on managing for health and safety (HSG 65) may be useful to your company because it outlines a step-by-step strategy for risk management. However, a formalised management system approach, such as HSG65 or ISO 45001, may not be the best fit for your company, especially if it’s small and low-risk.

Certification

Without obtaining certification, your organisation can apply the standard to your activities (in whole or in part) to help give evidence of strong health and safety management and improvements. However, you can only claim to comply with the standard if it is completely implemented and audited by a 3rd party certification body such as those recommended by UKAS.

Audit

Auditors and certifiers should be aware that, in order to implement ISO 45001 in a proportionate manner, it must be: adapted to the size and complexity of an organisation in proportion to the risks

You should make sure that any auditor or certifier you hire has proof of competence to a recognised standard, such as ISO 19011:2011 or sections of the ISO 17021:2011 se

ries.

The certifying organisation shall be accredited for ISO 45001 by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) or an equivalent accrediting body that is a member of the European Cooperation for Accreditation (EA) or the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).

Product specifications

This article’s guidance is limited to the ISO 45001 standard for health and safety management systems. Our training continues to recognise the importance of product standards in:

• · ensuring consumer and workplace safety
• · ensuring a level playing field for enterprises and facilitating international trade

Outside assistance with ISO 45001 is available.

You can seek outside assistance to help you comply with the standard, but your organisation will remain legally accountable for risk management on a day-to-day basis.

If you hire a third party (such as auditors or certifiers), make sure they can demonstrate that they’ve implemented the standard appropriately across a variety of business sizes, types, and sectors.

Deadline

The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) has extended the migration date for ISO 45001 certification in response to the issues highlighted by COVID-19.

OHSAS 18001 certificates that have already been issued can now be extended for up to six months. As a result, the deadline for approved certificates to migrate from OHSAS 18001:2007 to ISO 45001:2018 has been extended until September 30, 2021.