Where to start when you don’t know what ISO 45001 is…

You’ve just got your head around the principals and the requirements of the Health and Safety standard BS EN 18001, and your finally comfortable with this, however, there’s discussions of migration to ISO 45001. You’re assigned with the migration process, however as you’re smiling and nodding in agreeance, you’re actually trying to digest what ISO 45001 is, figuring out what to do, and where to begin!

Hopefully the following will support you in understanding what an Occupational Health and Safety Management System is, the benefits to implementing one within your business and the next steps to achieving certification.  

What is an Occupational Health and Safety Management System?

• ISO45001 is an Internationally recognised Standard designed to provide a framework for establishing an Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS);
• An OHSMS will help your business (regardless of size and nature) to integrate all aspects of health and safety, including worker wellness/wellbeing;
• An OHSMS will impel your business to manage, monitor and control accident and incidents, to ensure accidents and incidents are prevented for all persons working under tour control;
• An effective OHSMS should ensure that your business will continually measure performance and strive for improvement.

The Benefits of an Occupational Health and Safety Management System;

There are various benefits that can be gained for a business when implementing an OHSMS, these can include the following;

• Holding certification to ISO 145001 can demonstrate competency to potential new clients when tendering for new works or Frameworks;
• A well-maintained OHSMS demonstrates compliance with current and future statutory and regulatory requirements and ability to respond to regulatory compliance issues;
• Incorporating an OHSMS within your business can reduce the overall costs of incidents, downtime, disruption to operations, insurance premiums and non-attendance;
• Possessing an OHSMS within your business can demonstrate your business recognises Occupational Health and Safety as a significant priority and therefore can lead to possessing a respectable reputation within your industry.

The Next Steps…

Undoubtedly the next step is to implement an OHSMS or implement changes that have been presented from the new standard, but the key is to remember that you do not have to undertake this task unaided, and that there are consultants who are experts on implementing Management System.

Our free ISO 45001 health check will help you to evaluate how good your health and safety is, simply contact us and quote: ‘ISO 45001 Health check’