Health and Safety Management

 What is ISO45001 (formerly OHSAS18001)

ISO45001 (which replaces OHSAS18001) is the world’s foremost recognised health and safety management model.

Who uses ISO45001/OHSAS18001?

ISO45001/OHSAS18001 is applicable to all organisations from service to manufacturing and from micro-organisations to large multi-nationals.  In fact, any organisation which is seeking to reduce its health and safety risk, reduce accidents, reduce ill-health and assure its customers that it fully complies with all H&S legislation can benefit from implementing a certified management system.

Why implement ISO45001/OHSAS18001?

Implementing a certified OHS (occupational health and safety) management system provides a range of benefits including:

• assurance to external stakeholders such as customers, the community and regulators
• potential savings in the cost of lost time due to accidents and ill health
• increased competitiveness among industry rivals
• meets the requirements for public and private tenders
• reduced potential for health and safety liability and fines
• helps ensure health and safety compliance
• improved employee motivation through the provision of a safe work place

 Is it compatible with other standards?

ISO45001 is based on a structure called Annex SL and is fully compatible with ISO9001 (quality management) and ISO14001 (environmental). What this means is that 3 systems can be seamlessly implemented together into a single integrated management system. Similarly, ISO9001 or ISO14001 can be easily integrated into an existing ISO45001 OHS management system.

Migration Policy (OHSAS18001:2007 to ISO45001:2018) (updated March 2020)

ISO45001:2018 was published on March 12th, 2018. There now follows a 3-year migration period where both ISO45001:2018 and OHSAS18001:2007 co-exist. During this period of co-existence (up to March 11th, 2021*) existing and new clients may be audited and certified to either version of the standard as follows:

1. New clients opting for certification to ISO45001:2018 during this period will be issued with 3-year certificates following a successful audit.
2. New clients opting for certification to OHSAS18001:2007 may only do so up to September 11th, 2020. All certificates issued during this period will have an expiry date of March 11th, 2021*, regardless of the date of certification. In order to maintain certification after March 11th, 2021*, clients will be required to undergo audits to migrate to ISO45001:2018, regardless of the date of their previous audit (see “3” below).
3. Clients who are certified to OHSAS18001:2007 wishing to gain certification to ISO45001:2018 during this period have 2 options:
   • Migrate to ISO45001 at the next scheduled reassessment date, within the migration period. Note that a minimum of 1 auditor day will be added to the reassessment audit duration to cover the new requirements of ISO45001:2018.
   • Migrate to ISO45001 at 1 of the surveillance audit dates within the migration period. This option will require additional time to be allocated to the audit duration to address the new requirements of ISO45001:2018 (typically these special surveillance audits will be of the same duration as a reassessment audit, taking into account the additional time also required in the point directly above.
4. Already certified clients wishing to remain certified to OHSAS18001:2007 during this period may do so. Any new certificates issued during this period will have an expiry date of March 11th, 2021*, regardless of the date of issue of the certificate. No new OHSAS18001:2007 certificates will be issued after September 12th, 2020.

In order to maintain certification after March 12th, 2021, these clients will be required to undergo audits to migrate to ISO45001:2018, regardless of the date of their previous audit (see “3” above).

Certified clients must maintain conformity with OHSAS18001:2007 during the migration period.

Clients may not claim certification to ISO45001:2018 until they have been audited and issued with the appropriate ISO45001:2018 certification.