UK - What IOSH’s Accreditation Changes Mean for You

Original article published by IOSH

Accreditation changes will begin to affect certain well-known taught OSH programmes and qualifications from the end of this month (August 2022).

This quality assurance exercise was designed to assure consistency for OSH professionals worldwide, and we have been working with education providers on this for over a year . This work is in line with the charitable objects of IOSH that improve occupational safety and health systems and standards and maintain and enhance the professional status of our members.

In this short news story, you can find out what’s happening and what you can do to make sure the taught programme/qualification you’re taking (or planning to take) is accredited by IOSH as a route to membership, wherever you are in the world.

Accreditation for quality and consistency

IOSH updated its accreditation service for taught OSH programmes/ and notified all existing education providers nearly 18 months ago, in February 2021.

This was to allow for all existing providers to transfer over to our new service by the 31 August 2022 deadline.

Any education provider applying for accreditation had to meet the following eligibility for accreditation:

• The organisation (Higher Education Institution or Awarding Organisation) presenting one or more of its qualifications/programmes for IOSH accreditation must be recognised by a relevant and reputable education regulator.
• The qualification(s)/programme(s) being presented for IOSH accreditation must be on a regulated qualification framework.
• The qualification(s)/programme(s) must adequately meet the learning outcomes required for entry into IOSH membership as documented in the Institution’s competency framework.

Providers have all been working to the same deadlines and no exceptions can be made to these criteria to ensure the quality and integrity of our service.

The Accreditation Team and Education Account Team have worked closely with all our valued education providers over the past 18 months to ensure everyone was equally supported through the new application process by the 31 August 2022 deadline.