In 2005, the OHSAS Working Group started the process for revising OHSAS 18001:1999, Occupational health and safety management systems – specification.  OHSAS 18001 is a specification document developed in 1999 by an independent group of national standards organizations and certification bodies.

An initial working draft of the revised OHSAS 18001 standard was circulated in January 2006 for public comment.  Following a review of the 500 comments received on Working Draft 1 at a meeting of the OHSAS Working Group in Madrid, Spain in October of 2006, a second draft was circulated for comment in November of 2006.

The OHSAS Working Group met again in Shanghai, China in March of 2007.  The 500+ comments on Working Draft 2 were reviewed and consensus was reached on the language of the revised standard.

Work on the companion document, OHSAS 18002, Occupational health and safety management systems – Guidelines for the implementation of OHSAS 18001 is scheduled to begin in July of 2007.

The recent meeting of the OHSAS Project Group in Shanghai was very successful, and led to an agreed text to take forward for publication. It was made during the meeting limited, but critical changes to the text when compared to WD2 of OHSAS 18001 (e.g. to clarify the issues around the "place of work", "consultation" etc.).

The draft still needs to go through re-formatting, final editing and typesetting before it is ready for publication.

It is expected that the OHSAS 18001:2007 to be published on 1 July 2007.  This new version is better aligned with ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004, keeping the same clauses order and most of the changes of ISO 14001:2004. This will encourage Management Systems integration and possibly increase the interest in OHSAS. OHSAS 18001:2007 is also more results oriented.