Interpretation of § G 9.4.4.2 of IAF MD 22:2019 (application of ISO/IEC 17021-1 for the certification of occupational health and safety management systems (OH&SMS))
The document IAF MD 22:2019, states in G 9.4.4.2 that: The audit team shall interview the following personnel: ‘iii) personnel responsible for monitoring employees’ health, for example, doctors and nurses.[…]’
The question we have is: what are the personnel, “responsible for monitoring employees’ health”, expected to be audited for an ISO 45001 certification?
In France (and this may be also the case in other countries), workers health is monitored by a “at work health system”, including doctors and nurses. This system is public, mandatory for every company, external to the company, and then not under its responsibility nor management system.
The certified companies do not have internal doctors or nurses (maybe the big ones have duplicated the system internally, but only very few of them).
Does G 9.4.4.2 require that only doctors and/or nurses or medical personnel under the responsibility of the doctor- all from the external system – shall be interviewed by the CB’s auditors? Which might lead to issues of availabilities and responsibilities, as none of them belongs to the certified company?
2 different CBs have interpreted the clause in another manner, indicating in their provisions that some type of internal staff, as e.g., the human resources director or the representative of the social and economic committee “ (mandatory for every company with more than 11 employees), this committee having the mission to “help to promote health, safety and working conditions in the company. It carries out investigations into accidents at work or occupational or occupational diseases”, can be considered as the personnel responsible for monitoring employees’ health, and then be the one audited. Could this be acceptable? At which conditions? Can we consider that the conditions that he/she has been namely designated for this task, and this responsibility is clearly defined and that he/she has all the necessary information and full access to the data (or allowed data, some might be confidential) related to the employees’ health, are acceptable?
We are fully aware that:
- The external system does not exist in every country and that IAF MD 22 is an international document, but shouldn’t the national conditions be considered?
- The external system is not under the company responsibility
- The external system is neutral and objective regarding the workers’ health, where the HR director might have a conflict of interest and not all the persons’ health data,
- the health and social committee, inside the company may be more neutral but may not have information regarding one specific person (while it can have global report from the external doctor)
We have at first interpreted the clause as requiring the external doctor to be audited.
The 2 CBs are refusing this for 3 reasons, as national specific and since the doctor is external to the company and regarding the mission of the committee which for them is covering the requirement.
March 2022
“Clause G9.4.4.2iii requires that the personnel responsible for monitoring employees’ health shall be interviewed during the OH&SMS audit in order to confirm that the activity for which he/she is assigned is continuously and effectively made in accordance with his/her mandate.
The clause does not specify if such person shall be an employee or an external who operates based on a contractual assignment.
In Italy for example, it is mandatory by law that each organization appoint a so-called “Competent Doctor” who generally is an external professional with a degree in medicine specialized in hygiene and work medicine, working on behalf of the organization based on a legally enforceable agreement.
His responsibilities are clearly defined by the Consolidated Law on OH&S (Decree 81/2008) and include among others:
- the participation in the preparation of the mandatory OH&S risk assessment document,
- the initial and periodic medical examination of each worker to confirm and authorize their eligibility to the task assigned by the management, and to determine any job limitations,
- to decide on the types of medical test to which the workers must periodically undergo,
- to conduct periodic inspections of the workplace to confirm their continual healthiness and safety
- to participate in an annual periodic meeting to keep the management updated about the status of health monitoring of workers.
As you can understand, this doctor represents a key role in the management structure of the OH&S system and, as such, during each audit, in addition to being interviewed in person or remotely (G 9.4.4.2) he must also be invited to participate in the closing meeting (G .9.4.7.1).
From what you wrote I understand that the French OH&S legislation is not significantly different from the Italian one.
Anyway, since the IAF MD22 document is applicable in all countries worldwide, the clause must necessarily be interpreted and applied according to local legislation which may not necessarily require the nomination of a medical doctor like in Italy. For this reason, the consensus was reached introducing the more general role of “personnel responsible for monitoring employees’ health” and making the example of doctors, nurses, or others.
In conclusion, the correct interpretation of this clause for any CAB should be as a minimum:
- to confirm that each organization has assigned such a role in its organizational structure, independently if he is an employee or a contracted specialist, and if he is a doctor, a nurse, or other
- to demonstrate that it has interviewed him during the audit, checking the evidence of his activity within the limits of medical confidentiality, and recording the outcome of the interview in the audit report (G 9.4.4.2)
- to make sure that the representative of the organization invites him, as MS key role, to participate in the closing meeting, providing a justification in case of absence (G .9.4.7.1).
Of course, we must accept that the declination of such mandatory requirements may be different from country to country in function of the local laws and regulations in the OH&S field.