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Health & Safety
Management Systems
Health & safety
(H&S) management has historically been managed by most companies
in accordance with regulatory requirements. More recently, the British
Standards Institute produced the standard OHSAS 18001:1999
Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems - Specification. This
standard is gaining increasing acceptance as an international benchmark
for the management of H&S issues. Since the International Organisation
for Standardisation has not undertaken to develop an international
standard for H&S management, the British Standard is increasingly
being adopted to fill this void. OHSAS 18001 follows the same
Plan-Do-Check-Act structure of the ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 standards, for
environmental and quality management systems, respectively.
Cotter can assist
companies in assessing their conformance with this H&S standard, and
the implementation of an effective system that conforms to it. There
are many opportunities to integrate H&S and environmental management,
and companies should be striving to achieve integration for cost-savings
and efficiency reasons. |