OHSAS Standard 18001 is the international standard for risk assessment in terms for managing occupational health and safety. The initials stand for Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Service. It was formed in 2001 within the National Health Service (NHS), under whose auspices it has remained.
Risk management may seem on the surface to be a complicated subject best left to experts. The reality is we have all been practicing it informally since the age of about six, when we were taught how to safely cross the street. It is simply the process of quantifying the chances of a situation occurring combined with the severity of the consequences.
The first step in producing a risk management plan is to assign numerical values to the likelihood of a particular type of accident happening and the magnitude of its impact. Multiply these two numbers together to come up with a value for relative risk. Those hazards with a high relative risk are the ones you target for mitigation. The benefit of mitigating a particular hazard is then weighed against the cost of mitigation. Risks may be mitigated by taking measures to reduce the likelihood of their happening or by softening the impact of its undesirable consequences.
An obvious example taken from the hospital setting is the possibility of a surgeon leaving a sponge inside a patient on the operating table. The likelihood of this taking place is perhaps higher than any of us are comfortable and the consequences for the patient can be quite serious. Using this quantitative approach, the event will stand out as one that should be addressed.
The cost of eliminating the risk is quite cheap. Simply include in surgical protocols a step where the scrub nurse counts the number of sponges as they go into the patient and the number that are removed by the surgeon.
In a culture where litigiousness is on the increase, the financial impact of an employee suffering an accident at work can be expensive for the employer. Implementing OHSAS 18001 can make the workplace safer by improving a risk management plan that is already in place and demonstrate due diligence. It makes the workplace safer.
Several important areas are addressed by the Standard. The main ones are the assessment and mitigation of risks and the identification of potential hazards. It covers structure, responsibility, training, preparing for emergencies and monitoring performance.
OHSAS 18001 benefits organizations that are looking for a formal framework within which to reduce health and safety risks within the workplace. This approach eliminates the confusion associated with a plethora or different specifications. The standard was designed to be compatible with existing documents for quality and environmental system management.
Additional resources ISO 9001 accreditation and ISO 9001 certification
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