IOSH is taking part in the development of a global standard for organisations to create their own health and safety management systems.
An IOSH team attended a week-long meeting in Morocco to examine 1,300 comments from practitioners, auditors and industry, ILO and union representatives for the drafting of ISO 45001.
Richard Jones, head of policy and public affairs at IOSH, said: “The globalisation of trade has arguable increased the need for international standards, such as those produced by the International Standards Organisation (ISO).
“To date, organisations seeking certification of their occupational safety and health management systems have used standards like OHSAS 18001 and Z10. So, the recent decision by ISO to develop a new international standard that will allow organisations to be certificated to a truly global standard, represents a major development.”
The recent meeting, in Casablanca, drew about 85 delegates and was divided into five task groups, with the two IOSH delegates, Richard Jones and Phil Bates, assigned to those looking at ‘planning’ and ‘terms and definitions’.
All task groups are aiming to complete their current work programmes by the beginning of July, in time for the compilation of draft proposals for consultation.
Beginning in August, the consultation period will last three months and the comments will be discussed at a meeting in November 2014 at the earliest. The overall plan is to deliver a draft international standard by April 2015, with a final draft international standard scheduled to be available for consultation in mid-2016.
ISO 45001 is expected to be finally published in October 2016.
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