ISO 45001 – have you updated your certificate?

The deadline for migration to ISO 45001 has now passed. Are you up to date? The Compliance People consultant, Ellie Galston, gives you an update on the change to occupational health and safety standard certification and what you might need to consider at your own organisation.

What’s happened?

ISO 45001 was published in spring 2018 and is an international standard for Occupational Health and Safety Management. The previous occupational health and safety standard most widely accepted in the UK was OHSAS 18001.

The new ISO 45001 Standard follows the same structure as other ISOs used by organisations, such as ISO 14001 and ISO 9001, making it simpler to integrate it within your organisation. New requirements are also added, such as for employee consultation.

Organisations that were certified to OHSAS 18001 were given 3 years to migrate their health and safety management systems over to the requirements of ISO 45001 and become certified to the new ISO Standard by 11th March 2021. This deadline was extended, due to COVID-19, until 11th September 2021.

All organisations that held OHSAS 18001 certification should have now transitioned to ISO 45001 and obtained a new certificate, as OHSAS 18001 certificates have all now expired and are no longer valid.

What do you need to do?

Hopefully you will already have gone through migration and recertification of your OH&S management system to the new ISO Standard with your certification body and received an updated certificate. If not, get in touch with your certification body.

Congratulations if you’ve successfully transitioned to ISO 45001! There are just a few things you need to consider now as outlined below.

• Update any old certificates with your new one, such as on noticeboards, your company website, the intranet, client information packs, etc.
• Make sure any staff sending copies of certificates to clients (such as for part of supplier questionnaires) are sending the new certificate.
• Update any references to OHSAS 18001 with ISO 45001 – don’t forget to check your company email footers, website, leaflets and other marketing materials, stickers on any company vans, etc.
• Make sure you’ve communicated your successful transition within your own organisation and celebrate your success!
• Make sure you continue to meet the requirements of the Standard ready for any surveillance audits and ensure your internal audits with The Compliance People are booked in ready.

If you’re still in the throes of transitioning to ISO 45001 and need a hand meeting the requirements, or if you’ve decided to work towards getting your OH&S management system certified, why not get in touch? We can help you implement and maintain your management systems – give us a call for a friendly chat to see how we can help you.