OHSAS 18001 to be published as a Standard
OHSAS18001 1999 is to be re-issued as a British Standard, BS OHSAS 18001 2007, due for publication on 2nd July 2007.
Following the issue of Working Draft 2 in December 2006, several changes have been introduced, including:
- Change from ‘Specification’ to ‘Standard’
- More closely aligned with ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004
- ‘Personnel’ replaced with ‘persons working for or on behalf of the organisation’
- Greater emphasis on ‘health’
Clauses have been revised to include:
- New requirement that all personnel working for or on behalf of the organisation take responsibility for aspects of OH&S over which they have control (Clause 4.4.1).
- More detailed requirements relating to the identification, provision and evaluation of training (Clause 4.4.2)
- A new requirement for participation and consultation (Clause 4.4.3)
- New clause requiring the organisation to ‘establish, implement and maintain a procedure for periodically evaluating compliance with applicable legal and other requirements (Clause 4.5.2)
- Greater detail on the requirements regarding the inputs to Management Reviews (Clause 4.6)
It is expected that organisations already registered to the OHSAS 18001 1999 specification will be upgraded to BS OHSAS 18001:2007 in a 24 transition period, ending 1st July 2009.
Source: www.bsi-uk.com (accessed 08/06/07)
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