ISO 45001 certificationOccupational Health and Safety Management

HSE guidance HSG65, Managing for health and safety, is built around Plan, Do, Check, Act, which is also the logic behind ISO 45001. Organisations following HSG65 will recognise many of the same elements, including leadership, risk profiling, worker involvement and review. ISO 45001 adds specific auditable requirements and independent certification, but it does not replace UK legal duties.

No. OHSAS 18001 was withdrawn when ISO 45001 was published in 2018, and the migration period for accredited certificates ended in 2021. Any organisation still referring to OHSAS 18001 would need to implement ISO 45001 and undergo a full certification audit. Much of your existing system is likely to be reusable, particularly risk assessment and incident management.

Clause 5.4 requires processes for consulting non-managerial workers on matters such as their needs, policy, roles, legal requirements and objectives, and for their participation in hazard identification, risk assessment, incident investigation and determining controls. Auditors will usually speak with workers directly to confirm these arrangements exist and work.

No. Our auditors assess your management system against ISO 45001, which includes observing work, speaking to staff and checking that controls described in your system are applied. This is not a regulatory inspection, and we do not enforce legislation. If an auditor sees a serious and imminent danger, they will raise it immediately with site management.

They must be considered. ISO 45001 defines workers broadly, and clause 8.1.4 requires you to control procurement, contractors and outsourced functions so that hazards and risks arising from them are managed. Auditors will check how you select contractors, coordinate activities on shared sites and make sure induction and supervision arrangements are in place.

Once your system has been operating long enough to produce records, including an internal audit and management review, most organisations complete Stage 1 and Stage 2 within six to twelve weeks of booking. Higher risk activities or several sites can increase audit duration. The certification decision is made after the Stage 2 report has been independently reviewed.

We would expect to be informed of serious incidents or regulatory enforcement relevant to your certified scope. We may ask for information about the investigation and the actions taken, and in some cases carry out a short-notice audit. Certification is not automatically withdrawn, but we need confidence that the system is still effective.

Yes. All three share the Harmonized Structure and many common processes, so integrated management systems covering quality, environment and safety are common. We can carry out integrated audits where your system is genuinely combined, assessing shared clauses together and the standard-specific requirements individually, normally with a shorter total duration than three separate audits.