Transport and plant hire firm adopts fingerprint sweat drug test to help fulfil its FORS accreditation safety requirements

02.27.2020

Explore Plant and Transport Solutions

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Transport and plant hire firm adopts fingerprint sweat drug test to help fulfil its FORS accreditation safety requirements

  • Fingerprint drug test helps Explore with company-wide Drug Policy
  • HR team can now carry out testing in-house across the company’s network of depots using the portable system

Explore Plant and Transport Solutions – one of the UK’s fastest-growing transport and plant hire services – is using Intelligent Fingerprinting’s innovative fingerprint drug testing method to help meet its industry Drug Policy requirements.

As part of Explore Plant and Transport Solutions’ Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) accreditation, the company must ensure that their driving staff meet driver licence/medical requirements and are not impaired through drink, drugs or fatigue. Explore Plant and Transport Solutions is now using the Intelligent Fingerprinting test to detect drug use in around 10 minutes by collecting and analysing tiny traces of fingerprint sweat. The company’s HR executives have been trained to carry out the quick and easy fingerprint drug tests in-house as needed. The Intelligent Fingerprinting system is currently being used for random monthly drug tests across Explore Plant and Transport Solution’s UK sites to help promote drug use abstention among the company’s 300 employees.

Paul Gray, HSE Advisor at Explore Plant and Transport Solutions said: “we are a specialist transport and plant hire services company serving a wide range of safety-critical industries including construction, rail and aerospace, and safety is an integral part of our culture. While we’re proud of Explore’s safety record and consider it an important differentiator, we’re always keen to adopt innovative safety-promoting solutions that bring added value to the business. As part of our active employee Drug and Alcohol Policy, we were keen to have greater control over the process with an in-house drug testing method that we could use company-wide at our depots for HGV drivers as well as office-based employees. We were very impressed with the Intelligent Fingerprinting system and it stood out from everything else in the market. It is highly portable, enabling us to take it to any of our depots across the UK. It’s also accurate, non-invasive and really easy for our HR team to use. Employees are picked at random for testing, and we’ve found that they are intrigued by the new technology and have embraced it.

“We want to promote our Drug Policy as a positive initiative for both safety and for employee well-being. The Intelligent Fingerprinting method is hygienic for tester and employee alike, and we believe it is a really easy to use system that is ideal for our requirements with its portability and rapid sample collection – involving just a few minutes of an employee’s time,” added Paul Gray.

Intelligent Fingerprinting’s Dr Paul Yates added: “We are getting more and more interest from safety-critical employers such as Explore Plant and Transport Solutions, where drug abstention is a priority to promote health and safety in high-risk environments. What is clear from this drug testing project is that our product’s portability and in-house testing abilities provide the customer with the flexibility and control needed to fulfil not just their internal safety objectives, but also their industry regulatory and accreditation requirements.”

Fingerprint-based drug testing – how it works
Intelligent Fingerprinting’s drug testing solution features a small, tamper-evident drug screening cartridge onto which ten fingerprint sweat samples are collected, in a process which takes less than a minute. The Intelligent Fingerprinting portable analysis unit then reads the cartridge and provides a positive or negative result on-screen for all drugs in the test in ten minutes. A fingerprint-based laboratory confirmation service is also available.

An introductory video demonstrating fingerprint-based drug testing in action is available here

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For media information contact Cheryl Billson at Comma
Email: cheryl.billson@commacomms.com  Tel: +44 (0)7791 720460

About Explore Plant and Transport Solutions
Explore is one of the fastest-growing haulage and plant hire businesses in the UK. Since being founded in 2015 by managing director David Cox, the company has grown to encompass 150 trucks, 6,000 plant hire assets and 7 depots nationwide, creating 300 jobs and generating annual revenue in excess of £70 million. www.exploretransport.co.uk

About Intelligent Fingerprinting
Intelligent Fingerprinting’s portable Drug Screening System works by analysing fingerprint sweat. It is non-invasive, fast and cost-effective, with sample collection taking seconds and simultaneous screening for multiple drug groups in ten minutes. A laboratory confirmation service is also available.

The system has applications within many sectors and customers include employers in safety-critical industries such as construction, transport and logistics firms, drug treatment and family safeguarding organisations, as well as UK coroners. The company has distributors across the globe, including the USA.

Founded in 2007, Intelligent Fingerprinting is a spin-out company from the University of East Anglia (UEA).  The company is based in Cambridge, England and employs around 30 people. www.intelligentfingerprinting.com

Twitter @iFingerprinting

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