New Occupational Health & Safety Standard – ISO 45001

“Every 15 seconds, a worker dies from a work-related accident or disease, and 153 people experience a work-related injury. These represent an enormous burden for organisations and society as a whole, costing over 2.3 million deaths a year, not to mention the more than 300 million non-fatal accidents*.”

In a direct attempt to reduce these statistics, 70 countries around the world are involved with an ISO project committee to create a new standard – ISO 45001 Occupational health and safety management systems.

This anticipated standard is now one-step closer to full implementation as it was recently approved as a Draft International Standard.

This robust and effective set of processes for improving work safety in global supply chains has been designed to help organisations of all sizes, in all industry sectors, with the aim to reduce workplace injuries and illnesses around the world.

“ISO 45001 is based on the common elements found in all of ISO’s management system standards, assuring a high level of compatibility with the new versions of ISO 9001, Quality management systems, and ISO 14001, Environmental management systems. It uses a simple Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model, which provides a framework for organizations to plan what they need to put in place in order to minimize the risk of harm.”

Moira Gelman added: “I am looking forward to the new ISO 45001 standard that will bring Health and Safety into line with all the other ISO standards and give us credibility worldwide.”

The new standard is anticipated to be published as an International Standard by late 2016 / early 2017.

Source: ISO.