BS OHSAS 18001:2007 Published

The standard, BS OHSAS 18001:2007 Occupational health and safety management systems - Requirements, has now been published and will replace OHSAS 18001:1999 in due course.

There have been a number of significant changes to the standard since first published in 1999 which reflects its widespread and growing use. The changes include much greater emphasis on "health" rather than just "safety", with a significantly improved alignment to ISO 14001:2004 to allow businesses to more easily develop integrated management systems.

BS OHSAS 18001:2007 will supersede OHSAS 18001:1999 which will be withdrawn. There will be a two year transition period (which commenced 1 July 2007 with the publication of OHSAS 18001:2007) for those organisations that have already achieved certification to the existing 1999 specification, or are in the final stages of achieving it. It is not anticipated this will cause any significant problems for businesses.

Summary of the key changes between BS OHSAS 18001:2007 and OHSAS 18001:1999:  

• The importance of "health" has now been given greater emphasis.
• BS OHSAS 18001 now refers to itself as a standard, not a specification, or document, as in the earlier edition. This reflects the increasing adoption of OHSAS 18001 as the basis for national standards on occupational health and safety management systems.
• The "Plan-Do-Check-Act" model diagram is only shown in full in the Introduction.
• Reference publications in Clause 2 have been limited to purely international documents.
• New definitions have been added, and existing definitions revised.
• Significant improvement in alignment with ISO 14001:2004 throughout the standard, and improved compatibility with ISO 9001:2000.
• The term "tolerable risk" has been replaced by the term "acceptable risk"
• The term "accident" is now included in the term "incident"
• The definition of the term "hazard" no longer refers to "damage to property or damage to the workplace environment"
• It is now considered that such "damage" is not directly related to occupational health and safety management, which is the purpose of this OHSAS Standard, and that it is included in the field of asset management. Instead, the risk of such "damage" having an effect on occupational health and safety should be identified through the organization's risk assessment process, and be controlled through the application of appropriate risk controls
• Sub-clauses 4.3.3 and 4.3.4 have been merged, into a single clause 4.3.3 "Objectives and Programme(s)" in line with ISO 14001:2004.
• A new requirement has been introduced for the consideration of the hierarchy of controls as part of OH&S planning
• Management of change is now more explicitly addressed
• A new clause on the "Evaluation of compliance" has been introduced, as per ISO 14001:2004
• New requirements have been introduced for participation and consultation
• New requirements have been introduced for the investigation of incidents

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