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Following a substantial increase in demand for Hair Drug Testing by employers and family courts, www.Drug-Aware.com have issued a special training bulletin to General Practitioners who are being requested by patients to facilitate the collection of hair samples.
Christopher Evans, a technical advisor for Drug-Aware.com reports, “Hair Drug Testing is a necessary part of the Family Court process when drug allegations have been made between parents, as it protects the children during any subsequent contact. However, GP Practices are often burdened with the collection of hair samples at the request of the Courts without having been provided with adequate guidance. We are seeking to redress the balance by providing free training materials and support for GPs. The process is simple and only takes a couple of minutes, but without adequate training some GPs have refused to assist patients under court order.”
Although one would assume the responsibility of providing suitable guidance to GPs falls under the remit of the Courts or the National Health Service, it has fallen to services like Drug-Aware.com to support and assist GP Surgeries in meeting this recent rise in demand.
Hair drug testing requires a small tuft of 50-75 hairs from the crown of the head, which can be used to detect up to 50 different drugs over a period of time measured in months. In the case of patients who may not have sufficient head hair to collect a sample, a sample of body hair, typically underarm hair, is used instead.
“Some GPs have expressed reluctance over their Surgery’s involvement in the collection process,” Christopher Evans explained, “because they are unaware of how simple the process is. But their patients can sometimes be left under court order without the co-operation of their GP. Fortunately, when General Practitioners discover that the process isn’t much more complicated than verifying a patient’s identity for a passport application, (which is something they already do), they are usually happy to assist.”
GPs will normally levy a small fee of between £15 and £40 for the collection process, so this does not fall to the taxpayer or impact upon the NHS budget – but it can greatly help parents prove their abstinence from drugs and to re-establish contact with their children.
For more information on Hair Drug Testing please visit: http://www.drug-aware.com/articles/14/hair-drug-test/
Any UK Doctor’s Surgeries or Patients interested in hair drug testing can request a special bulletin by email or a free telephone consultation on 0845 900 2755.
Christopher Evans is a specialist in workplace drug testing with over 18 years’ experience working with numerous household names across the UK, along with the NHS, drug treatment centres and private hospitals.
Release ID: 92874