Important Update on ISO 45001

Important Update on ISO 45001

The first committee draft of the new Health & Safety standard ISO 45001 was published last summer.

This new standard helps the organisation to look beyond its immediate Health & Safety issues and to take into account what the wider society expects of them. Additionally, ISO 45001 insists that Occupational Health & Safety aspects are embodied in the overall management system of the organisation.

Once the first committee draft was published, the committee allowed interested parties to comment on the draft in the hope to increase transparency and to create a best-practice standard with a global consensus.

The draft failed to move to the next stage when it was unsuccessful in achieving a two-thirds majority. The draft received 29 approvals and 17 disapprovals.

A ‘no’ at this stage just simply means that the majority of voting countries believe that there is a need to improve the draft further before it can proceed to the next stage.

Unfortunately, it looks like the timeline for publication will have to be altered (the first publication of the standard is due October 2016). The next stage of the process is for the standard’s committee to convene to go through the 2,800 comments received from the first draft.

Once the updated committee draft is published it will be available for public comment once again.

Sources:

ISO

British Assessment Bureau

Submitted by our Health & Safety tutors, Antaris