Industry needs to address issue of drink and drugs ‹ ACCORDING TO THE industry organisation
Constructing Better Health (CBH), being tough on drink and drugs protects us all. To that end CBH has been working with contractors regarding drug and alcohol testing procedures and the best way to ensure compliance. According to the CBH website: “Testing for drugs and alcohol has been mandatory in the railways industry for some years and many construction
companies already undertake drug and alcohol testing to ensure that workers are safe to work on sites and to protect members of the public from accidents due to misuse of drugs and alcohol. “Following on from extensive research and requests for guidance, CBH can now publish its recommended guidance going forward and stipulates that, as a minimum, all construction companies/sites should have looked at the issue
of drug and alcohol misuse and work to an agreed drug and alcohol policy document per company. “Further, CBH has stipulated that safety critical workers on all construction sites undergo drug and alcohol testing in some form (according to company policy) and that the higher railway standard for alcohol be used as the norm for those in the construction safety critical workers category.” q
Testing can reduce the cost of absence – and accidents ‹ THE COST TO YOUR business of accidents in the workplace
pails almost into insignificance alongside that due to ill health. And, according to NHS figures for 2010, 19 million days are lost per year due to alcohol related absence alone – with an annual cost to the UK economy of £1.7bn. Add to this the direct costs of any alcohol related accidents – and an estimated 1 million employees at any time are working with drugs in their system – and the potential scale of the problem of substance misuse becomes very clear. Your duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 are also very clear. Nottinghamshire based Mediright Corporate Healthcare conduct drug and alcohol testing by fully trained, highly competent employees following professional protocols and standards. They are ISO 9001:2008 accredited. Drug and alcohol testing can be carried out: • Routinely, occasionally or on a random basis • Routinely as part of employment medicals • In specific circumstances for cause testing such as after an accident • or incident • As part of an aftercare rehabilitation programme Employees provide a urine specimen which will be tested immediately for the presence of substances such as amphetamines, benzodiazepines, cannabis, cocaine, methadone, methamphetamines and opiates (MOP). Any ‘non negative’ results are sent for independent laboratory ‘corroborative’ analysis. Alcohol testing is done via a breath test using similar equipment to that used by the UK police and with results available immediately. Tests are repeated if alcohol is detected. q
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