Following a period of open consultation, in July, the second draft of the Standard ISO 45001 has been approved.
It will be the subject of the next meeting of ISO/PC 283 (ISO Project Committee), which is planned for the month of September in Malaysia. During this event, the 69 participating members involved in the creation process of the standard will discuss the final draft and determine whether further reviews are required.
We don’t know the exact date yet, but the standard will definitely be published.
Aside from the legal/local/industrial requirements and the various benefits, ensuring an efficient health and safety management system is primarily a moral need.
The HSE calculates that 1.3 million people suffered from a work-related illness and 137 people were killed at work between 2015 and 2016. ILO global statistics estimate that 1 worker dies every 15 seconds, 153 workers have an accident every 15 seconds and 2.3m deaths happen at work, all over the world, every year.
The launch of the ISO 45001 is the final step of a process that began over 30 years ago. The first time that BSI proposed to ISO the establishment of a standard related to the management of occupational health and safety, they didn’t succeed.
At that time, it was deemed unnecessary to develop a standard ISO that could have created incoherency between multiple legal requirements already instituted by governments and local authorities. However, over time, many countries independently adopted their own reference standards, such as the Australian/New Zealand AS/NZ 480 published in 2001, the American ANSI Z10, the Italian Guidelines UNI-INAIL, which were established by a group of public authorities, employers and employee representatives, as well as the British OHSAS 18001 and HSG65.
This last model was developed by the HSE, which migrated from the POPIMAR to the “Plan-Do-Check-Act” model in order to converge toward a common structure. The need for a common reference was obvious at this point.
In terms of framework, the progress of the new standard ISO 45001 is represented by the High-Level Structure (Annex SL), which makes the new standard consistent with the ISO family. Consequently, the integration process among the other standards for management systems, such as ISO 14001 for the environment and ISO 9001 for quality, will also be simplified.
Furthermore, ISO 45001 aims to be suitable for implementation within any type or size of organisation, from charities to governmental departments.
The concepts of proactive and continual improvement are at the heart of the clauses. Specifically, the standard means to identify and control those aspects that can potentially lead to work-related accidents.
In addition, greater attention is now paid to occupational health. It is no longer about improvement in the light of an adverse occurrence; instead, it’s all about control at the source. We have the knowledge, we are aware of what can go wrong, and we understand what causes many occupational diseases. We can and must act preventatively.
The implementation of such a management system will involve a significant investment in terms of money, time and resources. However, if we consider all the consequences that an accident can cause, and the advantages, such as reputation and opportunities, that a standardised H&S management system can provide, the effort is clearly justified.
At AvantGarde, we can support your organisation in its development and implementation of a management system that can suit and enhance the long standing success of your business.
Leave a Comment