Our Drug and Alcohol testing team enjoys being onsite supporting employers to safeguard their workplace. When the team is conducting drug and alcohol testing, there is one question that they are asked the most by both workers and employers.
What is that question?
What happens when the onsite test is positive?
For a worker it’s referred to as a positive result – the technical term is actually called a ‘non-negative’ or sometimes referred to as an ‘unconfirmed’. When a non-negative is displayed, the question of ‘what happens now’ usually comes next.
The onsite manager will be notified (and anyone else your procedure requires) and the Drug and Alcohol Tester will begin the chain of custody process. This is where a second sample is taken, along with completion of some paperwork, and sent to a NATA accredited laboratory to confirm if the result is positive, drug class and levels.
Your employee is usually removed off-site and sent home to wait for the laboratory testing confirmation.
Depending on your business’ drug and alcohol policy and procedure, if the sample comes back as ‘confirmed positive’ then a Drug and Alcohol Management Plan (DAMP) should be developed for the person. The DAMP outlines the actions required to manage the risk moving forward and what supports the worker may need (such as employee counselling).
Visit our Drug and Alcohol FAQs page for more questions we are commonly asked.