A complete, working ISO 45001 document and records control procedure — covering the whole of Clause 7.5 and the occupational health and safety recordkeeping obligations that the standard itself does not state. Fifty-one pages. This is the procedure where the standard tells you least and the law tells you most, and it is built for exactly that gap.
Written as a filled-in worked example, so you can see what each element looks like when it is done properly — including the regulatory obligations no clause checklist points at.
51 pages, editable Word | 54 clauses cross-referenced | 18 MSI notes in the margin | 4 appendices, every one usable |
ISO 45001 states no retention period for any record it requires. Every period in your schedule comes from regulation, and the periods are long. Employee exposure and medical records run for durations measured in decades, because occupational disease takes decades to appear. A single default retention schedule is either non-compliant for those or absurd for everything else.
01
29 CFR 1904.33 sets five years. 29 CFR 1910.1020 sets thirty years plus duration of employment for exposure and medical records. Neither number appears in ISO 45001. Section 8 carries the period and the basis for every record, so nothing rests on a default nobody can defend.
02
Stored injury and illness records are updated when a case outcome changes, sometimes years later, and the method is prescribed. An organization that has trained its people to never alter a record has trained them into a recordkeeping violation. This procedure handles the exception explicitly rather than leaving it to collide with the general rule.
03
Workers and their representatives have rights of access to records about them, on stated timeframes. A process invented on the day the first request arrives is invented alongside a complaint. Section 6 defines the route in advance.
Every appendix, form and worked example is part of the document. Nothing is sold separately.
Most procedure templates restate the clause. “Documented information shall be reviewed and approved for suitability and adequacy” is an assertion, not a mechanism — it repeats what the standard already told you and leaves the decisions to you. This procedure makes the decisions and shows its reasoning.
It is built to seven marks: a real trigger, one accountable owner, stated decision criteria rather than intentions, records produced as a byproduct of the work, a defined exception path, trainable in one sitting, and a built-in review trigger that fires on events rather than on the calendar.
Health and safety managers, quality managers running an integrated system, and consultants — whether the organization is certified to ISO 45001, pursuing it, or running its OH&S system to the standard without a certificate.
Not sure yet? The free Document and Records Control Maturity Check scores your process across eight elements in about six minutes, with your score shown immediately.
Running safety to ISO 45001?
The free Document and Records Control Maturity Check scores your process across the eight elements this procedure is built on, in about six minutes. It is the fastest way to see which element is costing you before you change anything.
Both, deliberately. It is written as a filled-in worked example so you can see what each element looks like when done properly, with bracketed placeholders wherever a value is genuinely yours to set. You are editing a working document rather than filling in a hollow outline.
Yes. ISO 45001 pairs availability with suitability through Clause 7.4, which requires language, culture, literacy and disability to be taken into account. No other standard pairs those. A safe system of work issued in one language to a workforce that reads three is available and is not suitable, and the procedure treats that as a design requirement rather than a note.
No, and that is deliberate. Process interaction maps are provided for the ISO 9001, ISO 13485 and ISO 7101 procedures. For ISO 45001 the interfaces are handled in the risks and interfaces section without a separate map.
Editable Microsoft Word (.docx). Adapt it, rebrand it, and adopt it into your own document control system. The license permits the buying organization to use it across its own sites and issue it to employees, contractors and auditors, and permits consultants to adapt it for engagements they deliver.
No. Nothing in this procedure assumes a certificate. An organization running a management system because a customer requires it, because a supply chain demands it, or because it is a sensible way to work, uses it exactly the same way.
A procedure does not pass an audit; an organization does. What this gives you is a procedure that addresses every requirement of the clause with a named owner and a named record, and a records inventory with no blanks in it. Conformity is demonstrated by implementation and evidence. Unfilled placeholders are unmet requirements, so fill them.
The file you download is the current revision at the time of purchase, and it carries MSI’s revision and effective date in the footer. Replace both with your own release date when you adopt it — the first instruction in the document tells you to, because a procedure carrying somebody else’s revision date is not under your control.
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This is one procedure from a larger library. If you are building or maintaining a full documentation system, view the complete ISO 45001 procedure package — the procedures, guides and tools assembled together.
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The procedure is written throughout for a fictional organization called Perennia Corp, used for illustration and not connected with any real organization of the same or a similar name. Replace it with your own name and work through the bracketed placeholders. This is a professional work product provided for adaptation and use within your organization. It is not a certification requirement, an audit checklist, or a substitute for the applicable standard, the applicable regulation, or the judgment of a competent professional. © Management Systems International, LLC. All rights reserved.
