Posted By TonyB Hi Tumbleweed, I think one of the areas you are going to have to look at is what your going to do if a driver refuses to submit to testing. I think I'm right in saying (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong) that you cannot force people to submit to testing, as it is classified as intermate. However, if their employment contract clearly state that refusal constitutes 'gross misconduct' you can take action against them for refusal. If it doesn't you can't. Some people believe that Section 7 of HSWA means that employees have to summit to the test, as refusal can be seen as a failure to co-operate with their employee with regards to health and safety. But S7 is qualified by the statement of a duty 'imposed' on the employer. This type of testing IMPO is not 'imposed' on employers but selected. If this is the case then failure to submit is not a breach of S7, and again the employer cannot take any action (unless its in the Contract of Employment). You can however, after consultation amend peoples contracts of employment to include this requirement but only with the individuals consent and signature. Again, if they refuse to amend their contracts your stuck! All the best, TonyB

Posted By Dtec Morning Tumbleweed, I look after UK sales for a specialist supplier of drug / alcohol screening devices and provide consultancy when implementing this type of policy. Our drug screening product is entirely non invasive to the employee (unlike urine screening) and displays a positive / negative result within ten minutes. Our DrugWipes are being used worldwide by roadside police for driver drug screening. We also supply heavily to the UK workplace market throughout many industries including bus / coach, construction and large fleet operators. If you would like me to contact you to discuss further and provide more info, let me know. Thanks, Gareth

Posted By AHS DNA testing thats taking it to a whole new level I say lets start with those in charge.

Posted By Rob35 We currently undertake random D&A testing for employees including drivers. The company we use is Drager who have developed a computerised drug screening kit which we purchased. If you would like to discuss further then do not hesitate to drop me a e-mail Regards Rob35

Posted By Gareth Salisbury Sorry for the delay in replying, busy times at present. Regarding false positives, in very, very rare occasions DrugWipe has experienced a false positive from screening with DrugWipe to urine confirmation because DrugWipe has lower cut off levels than the cut off levels used in laboratory confirmation testing by GCMS. We will initially correctly detect a drug but when the secondary confirmation is taken, even though the drug is still present, it is below workplace cut off levels. Therefore the test has to be declared negative. In 10 years of supplying DrugWipe for sweat testing, codeine is the only prescription drug that has achieved a positive for our opiates test (codeine and morphine are forms of opiate aswell as heroin). The individual would have had to used an extremely large amount to trigger a positive (codeine is an addictive yet legal painkiller in the UK, and is featured in Coronation Street at the moment!!).This is extremely rare and when the secondary confirmation test goes back to the lab for GCMS analysis, the true metabolite of the drug will be identified so an innocent person will ultimately not be disciplined unfairly. I would be happy to provide further information if required, the above is just a very brief and hopefully understandable explanation.