ISO 45001: Occupational safety health management system
Occupational safety and health management system requirements
ISO 45001 carefully defines the requirements for the OH&S Occupational Health and Safety Management System to enable all types of establishments to provide healthy and safe workplaces, by providing an integrated system for the prevention of work injuries and ill health. The ISO 45001 standard is suitable for any establishment that wishes to establish and implement an occupational safety and health management system, with the aim of improving occupational safety and health, regardless of its size, type and type of activities.
Standard Occupational health and safety management system ISO 45001, which replaces OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System, and work has begun on ISO 45001 since 2014
The ISO 45001 standard also took care of important factors related to the organization such as the context of the organization, and factors related to the needs and expectations of its customers and any parties related to it. ISO 45001 also incorporates other aspects of occupational safety and health such as the health and welfare of workers. It is worth noting that the ISO 45001 standard is not exposed to the safety of products or damage to the customer’s property covered by the ISO 9001 standard, for example, and it is not exposed to the environmental effects covered by the ISO 14001 standard.
The ISO 45001 standard consists of ten main items:
1- Scope
2- Normative references
3- Terms and definitions
4- The context of the organization
5- Leadership and worker participation
6- Planning
7- Support
8- Operation
9- Performance evaluation
10- Improvement
In the context of the organization, the challenges of occupational health and safety within the organization must be understood, the risks inherent in the activity or field of work of the organization, the internal and external environment must be determined to identify relevant issues, and the requirements and expectations of the parties involved.
In the leadership and employee participation item, policy-making, organizational roles, defining responsibilities and powers, and demonstrating senior management’s ability to lead, commit and be accountable are included. All employees must be involved, not just adults.
In the planning item, risks and opportunities must be taken into account, whether in the organization or the concerned parties, and how to deal with these risks.
In the item of support, all matters relating to resources, competence, awareness, communication, and documented information must be taken into consideration; Where the phrase (documents and records) was changed to (documented information).
As for the operations or operation item, it has become more specific and clear, and includes planning, operating control, change management, external sources, procurement, and emergency preparedness.
The performance appraisal item includes monitoring, analysis, evaluation, compliance assessment, internal audit and management review.
The improvement item includes incidents and corrective actions for cases of non-conformity and the process and objectives of continuous improvement.
There remains a question that must be asked frankly; Does the world need an occupational safety and health management system?
And before answering this question with yes or no we should know that daily and all over the world, shocking and alarming statistics are recorded in health safety accidents and the effects and costs resulting from them. And that although companies tend to use general safety and health guidelines or local and federal standards, none of these principles has been proven to be universally consistent. OHSAS standards and recent survey results have shown the rapid increase in application of OHSAS 18001 and its equivalent standards over the past decade. More than 127 countries are currently using these standards, so there is an urgent global need to harmonize safety and health management systems using an international standard and share best practices in this regard.
Also, in the early 1990s, a number of parties from diverse geographic and economic regions expressed concerns about occupational health and safety systems around the world.
The following alarming statistics on health and safety incidents and related costs show that:
2.2 million workers lose their lives annually worldwide due to work-related accidents and diseases
More than 4.1 million American workers suffer a serious illness or injury each year
26.4 million working days were lost in the UK due to work-related illnesses and work-related injuries
4% of the world’s gross national product is lost due to work-related accidents and diseases
6,300 workers die every day due to occupational accidents and work-related diseases
These statistics undoubtedly prove that there is an urgent need to improve private health and safety management systems in organizations all over the world, and that this need will only grow in the future. And that as globalization intensifies, consumers and customers increasingly expect organizations to act ethically in every aspect of business, including the way they treat their employees. In recent years, the media has revealed a number of wrong practices of organizations, which led to a significant negative impact on their brands, loss of confidence in their business, and a great loss due to these wrong practices.
Accordingly, we see the necessity of applying ISO 45001 standards in establishments of any size and activity, especially those that have different forms of health and safety risks for workers and those dealing with them.
