Occupational health and safety management systems
ISO 45001:2018 (OHSAS stands for Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Specification). In April 
1999, the British Standards Institute released the specification that they called OHSAS 18001. This was developed in response to strong worldwide demand for a generalized, comprehensive outline for managing occupational health & safety issues.
A descendant of OHSAS 18001 and a number of other national and private-sector standards, ISO 45001 can be used by any company to promote safe work practices and employee well-being. Its format parallels ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and registrars are now implementing and testing uniform models for auditing and registration to ISO 45001.
An effective and robust occupational health and safety (OHS) management system can help you turn uncontrolled hazards into controlled risks and so better safeguard the wellbeing of both your people and your business.
Benefits of ISO 45001
- Protecting your people – a structured approach to hazard identification and risk management which can contribute to the provision of a healthier and safer working environment and the avoidance of a high proportion of accidents and occupational health problems. This should help reduce lost time through employee illness and injury which in turn can lead to improved staff morale.
- Minimising risk – the management of health and safety becoming more transparent and effective by translating the outputs of risk assessment, audits, inspections, legal reviews and incident investigations into action plans to minimise the risk of accidents.
- Legislation – provides a means for identifying existing legislation and other relevant requirements helping you stay within the law. This in turn can lead to potential reductions in liability claims and lower insurance premiums.
- Stakeholder confidence – increased credibility from having an OHS management system independently assessed.
- Management system-based – the ‘plan do check act’ basis of this standard is in common with other management system standards, such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, meaning it is easier to develop an integrated system.