Posted By Jay Joshi It ddepends what you want to get out of it. OHSAS 18001 is a "specification" that lends itself more easily to auditing as it has specific clauses etc. For all practical purposes, it could be construed as a "standard". OHSAS 18002 provides guidance for implementation of OHSAS 18001. BS 8800 is the standard for Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems (OHSMS). Its first edition in 1996 provided options for going via both the HS(G)65 & the ISO 14001 routes. The second edition in 2004 is mainly the HS(G)65 route. It is much easier to use BS 8800;2004 to implement an OHSMS. I would also recommend an excellent publication by BSI, "Managing Safety the Systems Way"-also in its second edition

Posted By Jonathan Sandler CMIOSH You might wish to bring the cost factor into the argument as well. HSG 65 is far the cheaper option. Regards

Posted By Nigel Hammond I'm not sure if I agree with that last point about cost. It cost our organisation about £7000 a year to maintain our OHSAS 18001 accreditation. However, it has helped us to reduce our insurance premiums by more than that amount and our accident rate has dropped by 23% in 12 months. The problem with HSG65 is it sounds wonderful in theory but if you do not have the constant threat of loosing your accreditation through non-compliance, it is difficult to fully engage all senior management into the process. I prefer the OHSAS 18001 spec anyway. It's pity BSI don't present it with nice glossy colour with pictures in the way that HSE do with HSG 65 - (although the HSG65 shows the wrong way to lift a giant jigsaw piece!) After getting over first impressions, I made the effort to really study OHSAS 18001 and use it as the specification for our H&S Manual. Once, I got my head round it, I found it to be beautifully simple and felt it had more of a continuous improvement flow to it than HSG65 – especially from a corporate perspective.

Posted By phil beresford Does anyone else have any firm quantifiable cost and other benefits of implementing a 18001 management system? Also what did it initially cost and what is the cost of maintaining it? Please e mail me direct if you prefer.