What is OHSAS 18001?

What is OHSAS 18001?

OHSAS 18000 is an international occupational health and safety management system specification. It comprises two parts, 18001 and 18002 and embraces a number of other publications.
For the record, the following other documents, amongst others, were used in the creation process:

• BS8800:1996 Guide to occupational health and safety management systems
• DNV Standard for Certification of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems(OHSMS):1997
• Technical Report NPR 5001: 1997 Guide to an occupational health and safety management system
• Draft LRQA SMS 8800 Health & safety management systems assessment criteria
• SGS & ISMOL ISA 2000:1997 Requirements for Safety and Health Management Systems
• BVQI SafetyCert: Occupational Safety and Health Management Standard
• Draft AS/NZ 4801 Occupational health and safety management systems Specification with guidance for use
• Draft BSI PAS 088 Occupational health and safety management systems
• UNE 81900 series of pre-standards on the Prevention of occupational risks
• Draft NSAI SR 320 Recommendation for an Occupational Health and Safety (OH and S) Management System

OHSAS 18001 is an Occupation Health and Safety Assessment Series for health and safety management systems. It is intended to help an organizations to control occupational health and safety risks. It was devloped in response to widespread demand for a recognized standard against which to be certified and assessed.



Its proponents claim that an occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) promotes a safe and healthy working environment by providing a framework that helps organizations to: consistently identify and control health and safety risks; reduce the potential for accidents; aid legislative compliance; and improve overall performance.
The OHSAS 18000 standards provide organizations with the elements of an effective OHSMS that can be integrated with other management requirements and help organizations achieve better occupational health and safety performance and economic objectives.
BS OHSAS 18001 specifies requirements for an OH&S management system to help an organization develop and implement a policy and objectives, which take into account legal requirements and information about OH&S risks. It applies to all types and sizes of organizations and accommodates diverse geographical, cultural and social conditions.
BS OHSAS 18002 provides generic assistance for establishing, implementing or improving an OH&S management system, and demonstrates successful implementation of BS OHSAS 18001.
OHSAS 18001 can be aligned with existing ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 management systems. Historically many organizations start with a quality management system (ISO 9001) and then add the environment management requirements from ISO 14001. They then look at their health and safety risks and add OHSAS 18001. More recently many organizations look at implementing all three standards at the same time which can be cost-effective and minimizes disruption. The standards can be integrated using a standard such as BSI’s PAS 99.


Drawing on the best of existing standards and schemes, the OHSAS Project Group published the OHSAS 18000 Series in 1999. The Series consisted of two specifications: 18001 provided requirements for an OHS management system and 18002 gave implementation guidelines. As of 2005, around 16,000 organizations in more than 80 countries were using the OHSAS 18001 specification. By 2009 more than 54,000 certificates had been issued in 116 countries to OHSAS or equivalent OHSMS standards.

Who Created OHSAS?

OHSAS 18001 was created via a concerted effort from a number of the worlds leading national standards bodies, certification bodies, and specialist consultancies. A main driver for this was to try to remove confusion in the workplace from the proliferation of certifiable OH&S specifications.
The participants were as follows:

* National Standards Authority of Ireland

* Standards Australia

* South African Bureau of Standards

* British Standards Institution

* Bureau Veritas Quality International

* Det Norske Veritas

* Lloyds Register Quality Assurance

* National Quality Assurance

* SFS Certification

* SGS Yarsley International Certification Services

* Asociaci?spa? de Normalizaci? Certificaci?r

* International Safety Management Organisation Ltd

* Standards and Industry Research Institute of Malaysia

* International Certification Services 

Benefits - How Can OHSAS Help?

The OHSAS specification is applicable to any organisation that wishes to:

• Establish an OH&S management system to eliminate or minimise risk to employees and other interested parties who may be exposed to OH&S risks associated with its activities
  
• Assure itself of its conformance with its stated OH&S policy
  
• Demonstrate such conformance to others
  
• Implement, maintain and continually improve an OH&S management system
  
• Make a self-determination and declaration of conformance with this OHSAS specification.
  
• Seek certification/registration of its OH&S management system by an external organisation

Essentially, OHSAS helps in a variety of respects... it helps: minimise risk to employees/etc; improve an existing OH&S management system; demonstrate diligence; gain assurance; etc. The benefits can be substabtial.