ISO 45001 is an international Standard for occupational health and safety (OH&S), providing a framework for managing the prevention of work-related injury and ill health, with the intended outcome of improving and providing a safe and healthy workplace for workers and persons under an organization’s control.
The Standard is intended to help organizations, regardless of size or industry, in designing systems to proactively prevent injury and ill health. All its requirements are designed to be integrated into an organization’s management processes.
It uses a simple plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model, which provides a framework for organizations to plan what they need to put in place to minimize the risk of harm. The measures shall address concerns that can lead to long-term health issues and absence from work, as well as those that give rise to accidents.
ISO 45001 enables an organization, through its OH&S management system, to integrate other aspects of health and safety, such as worker wellness/wellbeing. The Standard calls for the organization’s management and leadership to take responsibility for health and safety issues as part of the organization’s overall plan rather than shift responsibility to, for example, a safety manager.