Tony PM me with your email and I can pop you off some stuff. Been implementing 18001 for 12 years now! I have a nice gap analysis that you could use to evaluate your current SMS against the individual requirements of 18001. Jonty

Tony, I don’t mean to be ‘picky’. Just in case you do not know. 18001 is not a ISO standard. 18001 is a BS OHSAS, standard. Yes, it’s used in many countries, but it’s not part of the ISO family. 14001 and 9001 are ISO standards or International Organisation for Standardisation. ISO is based on the Greek word ISOS, meaning equal. In other words whatever the country the standard is used it’s equally applicable. Good luck with 18001.

After the publication of International Standards in Quality and Environmental Management as ISO 9000 and 14000 series that had started life as British Standards BS 5750 and BS 7750, there was an attempt by BSI to do the same for Safety Management Systems. Unfortunately, the BSI Technical Committee formed for this purpose, HS/1 could not reach a consensus on the route to follow for BS 8800 in the early 1990's. This led to a compromise in the publication of BS 8800:1996 in that it had both the HSG 65 route and the ISO 9001 route! Also, the majority of the HS/1 members did not want the BS 8800 standard to be avilable for "certification". This ultimately led to the Certification Bodies in conjunction with BSI, but not with the BSI HS/I committee publishing OHSAS 18001:1999 that was a termed as a "Specification" since it could not be termed as a "Standard". This was not accredited by any of the national accreditation bodies initially! At ISO i.e. international level, 2 attempts by BSI to initiate work on an international standard for Health and Management Systems did not materialise as the proposal did not get the requisite percent of votes. This was primarily due to in informal understanding with ILO-Worksafe that any "International Standard" for this would be led by ILO-Worksafe. ILO-WorkSafe to eventually published ILO OSH-MS Guidelines (ILO-OSH 2001). In the fullness of time, OHSAS 18001:1999 Specification became a de-facto international "standard" and a couple of national accreditation bodies, i.e. the Dutch and UK (UKAS) began accrediting OHSAS 18001:1999 for certification. This eventually led to the recognition of the revised OHSAS 18001:2007 by the BSI Technical Commitee HS/1 as a "Bristish Standard" and hence it designation as BS OHSAS 18001:2007 which was not the case with OHSAS 18001:1999 ! BS 8800:1996 was revised in 2006 when it only had the HSG 65 route, and now BS 8800 is superceded by BS 18004:2008 There is a decent summary on the HSE website, under the heading, "Comparison of HSG 65 with other key management ‘standards’ " at:- http://www.hse.gov.uk/fo...pect/mast/comparison.htm You also may want to refer to the excellent IOSH guidance, "Systems in Focus" at:- http://www.iosh.co.uk/id...ca257a19c&version=-1

Erm, 'Like'!

Thanks Suffolkman, Interesting and very helpful. Fortunately the present Company audit process involves staff interviews to check SMS impementation, 10% of staff are interviewed.I like the idea cross referencing a manual to the clauses. And I take note of the progress of the journey in the fact that the initial gap analysis is a start point, progress not perfection eh? Thanks again Tony