This has been in the some news or other since last year:-
http://forum.iosh.co.uk/...spx?g=posts&t=110573The background to all this is that 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 respectively, there was an attempt by BSI to do the same for Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems. This was after the publication of BS 8800:1996 that did not lend itself for certification.
At ISO i.e. international level, 2 attempts by BSI to initiate work on an international standard for Health and Management Systems, in January 1997 and June 2000 did not materialise as the proposal did not get the requisite percent of votes.
• In January 1997, ISO's Technical Management Board (TMB) shelved the possibility of ISO developing OH&S standards along the lines of ISO 9000. At that time, the TMB noted that the outcome of the international workshop on OH&S management system standardization held by ISO on 5-6 September 1996 in Geneva indicated that there was little support from the main stakeholders for ISO to develop standards in this field.
• In June 2000, for a BSI (British Standards Institution) proposal that ISO establish a technical committee to transform BS 8800, the British OH&S management system guidelines into an ISO standard, 29 members had voted in favour of the proposal, but 20 others had voted negatively. Under ISO rules, acceptance of such a proposal requires approval by two-thirds of the members voting. This is the second time that ISO has decided not to launch OHSMS work, the previous occasion being three years ago, after a consultation of stakeholders through a major international workshop.
This ultimately led to the Global Certification Bodies in conjunction with BSI, 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!
In the fullness of time, OHSAS 18001:1999 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 Committee HS/1 as a "British 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 and now BS 8800 is superseded by BS 18004:2008
Last year, the BSI proposal acheived the required majority and the work has started. BS OHSAS 18001 will be withdrawn, after a transition period when ISO 45001 is published
http://www.iso.org/iso/h...e/news.htm?refid=Ref1766http://www.iso.org/iso/i...committee?commid=4857129http://www.iosh.co.uk/News/From-OHSAS-to-ISO.aspx