What ISO 45001 consultancy involves
ISO 45001 is the international standard for occupational health and safety management systems. It sets out what an organisation needs in place to manage health and safety risks systematically: leadership commitment, consultation and participation of workers, hazard identification and risk assessment, legal compliance, objectives, operational controls, performance monitoring, internal audit, management review and continual improvement.
A consultant helps you build those arrangements around how your organisation actually works, then helps you test them before an independent certification body audits the system. The standard does not replace your legal duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. A well-run system is a structured way of meeting them and showing that you do.
Featherstone Safety is a consultancy, not a certification body. Certification is carried out and decided by an independent, accredited certification body. Why the two roles are separate.
Who this service is for
- Organisations asked for ISO 45001 by clients, main contractors or in tender requirements
- Businesses that manage health and safety reasonably well but have never formalised it into a management system
- Organisations already certified to ISO 14001 or ISO 9001 that now need occupational health and safety in the same framework
- Multi-site organisations that need consistent arrangements across locations
- Businesses whose previous attempt stalled, or relied on a template pack nobody uses
What we can support
- Gap assessment
A structured review of your current arrangements against ISO 45001, with prioritised findings and a written action plan.
- Implementation
Designing, building and embedding the management system with your team, through to certification readiness.
- Documentation and operational controls
Deciding what genuinely needs to be documented, and making sure procedures match the work: permits, contractor control, maintenance, inspection and emergency arrangements.
- Internal audit arrangements
Setting up an audit programme, coaching your internal auditors, or carrying out audits of areas we have not designed, so that impartiality is maintained.
- Management review support
Preparing the inputs, running the review and recording decisions and actions in a form that top management will actually use.
- Certification preparation
Choosing an accredited certification body, preparing for the stage 1 and stage 2 audits, and responding to any findings.
- Ongoing consultancy
Periodic support after certification to keep the system current: changes in law, new activities, incidents and corrective actions between surveillance audits.
How engagements are scoped
- Initial call. We discuss your activities, sites, people, current arrangements and why you want ISO 45001.
- Gap assessment where useful. If the scale of the work is unclear, a gap assessment defines it.
- Written proposal. A fixed fee, specific deliverables, the number of site days, your responsibilities and a realistic timetable.
- Agreed start. A named contact on each side and a regular meeting rhythm.
Typical deliverables
- Gap assessment report and prioritised action plan
- OH&S policy and system scope agreed with top management
- Hazard identification and risk assessment process, with the resulting registers
- Register of legal and other requirements, with a method for evaluating compliance
- OH&S objectives and plans for achieving them
- Operational control procedures where the risk justifies them
- Competence, awareness, communication and worker consultation arrangements
- Incident investigation, nonconformity and corrective action process
- Internal audit programme and management review records
- A certification readiness review
Deliverables are tailored. A small office-based business and a multi-site contractor need very different systems, and neither needs a manual for the sake of it.
Remote, hybrid and on-site delivery
Planning, document review, workshops and management review run well remotely. Verifying operational controls and talking to workers where they work usually needs time on site, so site days are agreed as part of the scope. We are based in Oxfordshire and support London organisations remotely and on site by arrangement. We do not have a London office. What can and cannot be done remotely.
Why Featherstone Safety
Featherstone Safety Ltd is an independent UK occupational health and safety consultancy providing ISO management system consultancy and implementation support. Thomas Featherstone holds the NEBOSH International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety and IOSH Managing Safely, is a Technical Member of IOSH (TechIOSH), and has eight years in safety-critical work.
- Systems that match the work. We build processes around how your organisation actually operates, so they survive contact with an auditor and with day-to-day pressure.
- Independent of certification. We are not a certification body, we do not issue certificates and we have no commercial tie to any certification body.
- Practical site experience. Recent work includes on-site health and safety advisory and observation support during the delivery and installation of a 300 tonne super grid transformer. That was health and safety advisory work, not ISO consultancy, and it is not an endorsement of our ISO services.
Read more about Thomas Featherstone or see our case studies.
Frequently asked questions
What does an ISO 45001 consultant do?
An ISO 45001 consultant helps an organisation design, implement and test an occupational health and safety management system that meets the standard. That typically means assessing current arrangements, planning the work, developing processes and documented information with the organisation, coaching the people who will run the system and preparing for the certification audit. A consultant does not certify the organisation.
Does a business need an external ISO consultant?
No. ISO 45001 does not require external help. An external consultant is most useful where internal experience of management systems is limited, time is short, the organisation wants an independent view of readiness, or a previous attempt has stalled.
What is the difference between an ISO consultant and a certification body?
A consultant helps you build and improve the management system. An accredited certification body independently audits it and decides whether to certify. Accredited certification bodies are not allowed to provide consultancy to organisations they certify, which protects the value of the certificate.
How much does ISO 45001 consultancy cost?
It depends on the number of people and sites in scope, the nature of the work, your starting point and how much support you want. We scope each project first and then confirm a fixed fee in writing. Certification body fees are separate and paid directly to the certification body.
Do you only work with London organisations?
No. We are based in Oxfordshire and work with organisations across the UK, using remote and on-site support. We do not have a London office; we support London clients remotely and visit sites by arrangement.
Can you carry out our internal audits?
Yes, internal audit support is available. Internal auditors should be objective about what they audit, so where we have designed part of your system we recommend that area is audited by someone independent of that work, or we agree with you how impartiality will be maintained.