Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems Auditor/Lead Auditor OHSAS

Course details

To be effective, the assessment of an organisation’s conformance with OH&S requirements and specifications requires auditors who understand OH&S risks and are properly competent to audit systems. OHSAS 18001 is the international specification for OH&S management systems and is ever increasing in popular use as a model for organisation’s OH&S systems. IRCA – the International Register of Certificated Auditors is the world's original and largest international certification body for auditors of management systems.

The purpose of IRCA’s OH&S Auditor programme is to provide confidence to organizations, regulatory authorities, accreditation bodies, certification bodies, business, and to stakeholders at large, that auditors certified to this program are competent. Also, when auditing suppliers or contractors against applicable OH&S requirements, it is necessary to represent your organisation in a professional, thorough and fair manner.

The aim of this course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills required to perform first, second and third-party audits of occupational health & safety management systems against OHSAS 18001, in accordance with ISO 19011 and ISO 17021, as applicable. All references in this document to ISO standards are to the current versions unless otherwise stated.

This course is designed to give learners a broad range of knowledge and skills to enable them to competently audit entire Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems against the requirements of OHSAS 18001. The course presents the most up-to-date approaches to auditing and utilises case studies, workshops and accelerated learning to allow learners to apply and practice their knowledge and skills throughout all the main phases of the audit process.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this training course, delegates will have the following knowledge and skills:

Knowledge

• Describe the purpose of an OH&S management system including the principles of hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control and compliance with legal and other requirements as described in OHSAS 18001, of OH&S management systems standards, of management system audit and of third-party certification.
• Explain the role of an auditor to plan, conduct, report and follow up an OH&S management system audit in accordance with ISO 19011 (and ISO 17021 where
• appropriate).

Skills

• Plan, conduct, report and follow up an audit of an OH&S management system to establish conformity (or otherwise) with OHSAS 18001 and in accordance with ISO 19011 (and ISO 17021 where appropriate).

Entry Requirements

Please note that IRCA recommend that students have a basic knowledge of OH&S issues and the requirements of the current version of OHSAS 18001 before they start this course.

Students that are not familiar with the purpose and intent of the OHSAS 18001 current standard should familiarise themselves with these before attending this course.

Before starting this course, you must inform students that they are expected to have the following prior knowledge:

a) Knowledge of the following occupational health & safety management principles

and concepts:

• The Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle.
• The purpose and benefits of a an occupational health and safety (OH&S)

management system.

• A basic knowledge of managing occupational health and safety (OH&S)

through hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control and compliance

with legal and other requirements.

• A basic awareness of common examples of relevant national and local OH&S legislation and requirements.
• Commonly used OH&S terms and definitions as given in OHSAS 18001.

This prior knowledge may be gained by completing an SQT OH&S Management Systems Foundation training course or equivalent.

If you happen to have access to a copy of OHSAS 18001, please bring a clean copy of the standard with you. If you don’t have access, a copy will be provided for you and will be collected at the end of the course.

The IRCA exam is quite challenging with a pass mark of 70%. To achieve a pass mark requires a good understanding of the OHSAS 18001 standard.

Fluency in spoken and written English is an entry requirement for this course.

Course Programme

Throughout the course the following content will be covered in detail;

• Introduce the purpose and benefits of an OH&S Management System and key OH&S related concepts and terminology.
• OH&S elements and approaches such as Risk Assessment, Controls, Continual Improvement, Performance measurement, Incident and Accident investigation etc.
• Methods for identification of legal and other OH&S requirements.
• Auditing OH&S management system requirements.
• Describe the certification/registration and accreditation processes, types of audits (1st, 2nd and 3rd party) and the differences between legal compliance and conformance with ISO standards.
• How to plan and prepare OH&SMS audits including the ability to develop and use Checklists and Audit Plans, using appropriate information gathered during the document review and/or stage-1 audit.
• How to Conduct, Report and Follow-up OH&SMS audits based on the ISO 19011 and ISO 17021 where appropriate, including various Audit Methodology, Questioning Techniques, Roles and Responsibility in order to collect and analyse evidence, exercise objectivity and make decisions on the significance of observation made in accordance to relevant audit criteria.
• Following up the audit.
• Outline IRCA Auditor Certification requirements.
• This course contains a total of 40 hours study time, which necessitates some evening work. For those who are attending the course on a non-residential basis we must stress that the course is very intense and team based activities extend to each evening (see course times); learners must be prepared for these long hours.

Course Assessment

Learners are assessed throughout the course by continual assessment and then by a written examination at the end of the week.

Continual assessment is based upon the student’s participation and demonstrable performance during the exercises, role-plays, case study and question & answer sessions. It is essential that learners take an active part in all course activities during the week in order that the tutor can make a full assessment of the student’s performance. Feedback on individual student’s performance will be provided (confidentially) during the week. Please note it is essential for learners to be in attendance for the full course.

The written exam is 2 hours duration. For those learners whose first language is not English additional time may be given, and the use of bilingual dictionary will be allowed (not provided).

Learners who have difficulties in reading or writing information at the same pace as most can be accommodated with additional time in the exam provided verifiable evidence is made available to the tutor. The minimum pass rate for the examination is 70%. Exam Results will be issued 8 weeks after course completion.