The OHSAS 18001:2007 Internal Audit Checklist

To successfully conduct an internal audit, it is critical that you plan and record accurately, while taking immediate steps to address gaps or nonconformances found.

Make sure your OHSAS 18001:2007 internal audit checklist is comprehensive by including these elements:

1. Risk Assessment
An audit checklist serves as an all-inclusive evaluation framework for an organization’s management system, covering legal and policy requirements as well as hazards identification and risk evaluation. Furthermore, this template can be customized to meet individual needs.

At any assessment, it is crucial to record findings accurately in order to facilitate accurate reporting and an effective follow-up process. It is also crucial that corrective and preventive actions be documented, in order to avoid repeat of any nonconformities detected during assessment.

Successful 18001 audit checklist creation requires an in-depth knowledge of both the standard and your policies and procedures. Lumiform can help simplify this process with its easy low-code platform allowing you to build an audit checklist tailored exactly to your requirements.

2. Hazard Identification
The next step of an audit checklist involves identifying hazards and risks. This means recognizing situations that could result in injury or illness to personnel as well as determining methods to eliminate those threats. Furthermore, legal requirements as well as occupational health and safety requirements that apply to an organization must also be evaluated during this step.

This component of the audit entails questions related to how departments communicate and share information, including what measures have been put in place to handle accidents, incidents and near misses. Furthermore, it looks into training procedures, communication processes and participation processes within an OH&S management system.

Create an internal audit checklist to achieve OHSAS 18001 compliance and certification can significantly reduce costs related to downtime, liability insurance premiums, operational expenses and employee morale. Furthermore, mobile-ready inspection checklists enable safety officers to complete inspections in the field with ease.

3. Control Measures
Internal audit checklists contain one of the most crucial sections, as it ensures that control measures have been established to safeguard individuals against risks identified during risk evaluation.

Engineering risk control measures typically involve redesigning something at an engineering level in order to mitigate or remove risks (for instance installing physical safety guards between moving parts on machinery). They could also include administrative controls like creating best practice guidelines and making sure employees assigned to high-risk environments receive adequate training.

Elimination is the preferred control measure; if this isn’t feasible, substitution should be employed – replacing hazardous material, substances or activities with something less risky.

4. Training
Training employees on an OH&S management system can have a profound effect on its success, so it is imperative that it meets both organizational needs and employee requirements.

Training should only be delivered by qualified personnel to ensure its accuracy and effectiveness.

Additionally, it is vital that training be documented. Doing so can help to avoid issues in the future while also helping identify areas for improvements. By adopting OHSAS 18001 standards organizations can improve their reputation among customers, clients, employees and stakeholders while simultaneously reducing accidents costs associated with them and ultimately raising morale and productivity in the workplace.

5. Communication
Make sure that the senior management is involved with implementing and operating your OH&SMS and reviewing its results, while reviewing internal audit results. In this section you should also establish competence, training, and awareness.

This area primarily involves reviewing documents required by OH&S standards as well as process documents. Questions will likely center around whether correct procedures are being adhered to so as to identify and eliminate hazards.

This includes keeping records of accidents, injuries and illness that arise within an organization and an adequate system is in place for investigating these events, recording them appropriately as well as handling them properly. A similar approach should be applied when calibrating and maintaining monitoring equipment.