Drugs and alcohol testing
Request ID: FOI-0592-2021
Date published: 30 July 2020
You asked
Could you please provide me with information on your drug and alcohol testing for people who have undergone treatment for addiction and been placed in rehabilitation centres? How often are they tested when they return to work? what types of tests are used(urine, blood etc)? What is your EtG cut off level if any?
Thank you in advance
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-0592-2021
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 10th July 2020 asking for information about drug and alcohol testing for TfL staff.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
Specifically you asked:
“Could you please provide me with information on your drug and alcohol testing for people who have undergone treatment for addiction and been placed in rehabilitation centres? How often are they tested when they return to work? what types of tests are used(urine, blood etc)? What is your EtG cut off level if any?”.
At TfL we use breathalyser tests for alcohol, and urine tests for drugs. We have approximately 50 employees per year seeking help through our Drugs and Alcohol Assessment and Treatment Service (a proportion of which go to residential treatment). Upon return to work, employees are placed on a monitoring programme, where they are tested for drugs and alcohol somewhere between four and eight times per month over a six month period. The frequency of the return to work testing is dependent on their role and individual circumstances. There is no EtG cut-off level, as EtG is a urine-based test for alcohol only which is not used by TfL.
If this is not the information you are looking for please do not hesitate to contact me.
On a more general matter, please note that the impact of current circumstances on TfL’s resources means we are not able to answer FOI requests readily and we ask that you please do not make a request to us at present.
Answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. In any event, please note that our response time will be affected by the current situation.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.
Yours sincerely,
David Wells
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
Back to top
