OHSAS 18001

The OHSAS 18001 and ISO18001 are the excepted worldwide Occupational Health and Safety Standard, developed by international third party certification bodies, national standard bodies and consultants, based on both ISO 14001 the Environmental Quality Standard and ISO9001:2000 the Quality Standard

Essential Quality Systems (EQS) provides a consulting service for the implementation of OHSAS 18001 and ISO 18001 from writting and implementing the Safety Management Systems (OHSMS) to conducting Third Party Inspections and Internal Audits

Central to implementing the OHSAS 18001 Standard is the establishment of a formal Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) to a structured systematic approach based on the 5 principles of ISO

Plan
Do
Check
Review
Improve

OHSAS is a simple toolkit for safeguarding and continually improving Occupational Health and Safety. It describes what must happen, leaving the organisation to determine how it should happen .

The OHSMS policy should be used by the auditor as an extension of the requirements of the standard which was set by the OHSAS committee, whereas the policy of the company is effectively a set of additional requirements that have been determined by top management.

OHSAS 18001

helps organisations

to prioritise and control OH & S issues
reduce risk and accidents, illness and downtime
to improve staff wellbeing and motivation
understanding of everone's role in workplace safety
to improve performance
translate the results of assessments and audits into risk-minimisation action plans
clearly demonstrates the organjisations good governance, due diligence and proactive commitment
shows that the organisation assesses, understands, manages and minimises hazard and risk to employees
ensures legal compliance

Implementing OHSAS 18001

Phase One	Preliminary review assesses of safety, existing compliance, start process of continual improvement
Phase Two	Safety policy, management roles, hazard identification, safety rules, action plans, procedures, training, reporting, preventative and corrective action, emergency preparedness and response, performance measurement and the monitoring of internal audits
Phase Three	Verify implementatation of the OHSAS 18001 Management System with internal audits, preferably done by an independent auditor