Norfolk Recovery Partnership (NRP), the organisation that provides advice and treatment for adults with drug and alcohol problems across Norfolk, has completed a successful trial of Intelligent Fingerprinting’s revolutionary fingerprint-based drug screening system. The NRP drug rehabilitation service, which is run by a partnership of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, The Matthew Project and The Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust, operates from seven sites across Norfolk, as well as providing advice and treatment services in three local prisons.
The Intelligent Fingerprinting solution is the world’s first portable fingerprint-based drug screening system. Its non-invasive approach – which detects drug use by analysing chemicals, known as metabolites, contained in the minute traces of sweat found in a fingerprint sample – makes it ideal to support rehabilitation services across both clinical and community-based sites. The system is particularly dignified for service users, requiring a single fingerprint sample that takes just five seconds to collect and provides simultaneous results in under 10 minutes for amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine and opiates.
During the trial, NRP found that fingerprint-based drug screening was particularly easy to use, with none of the hygiene or administrative issues typically associated with traditional drug screening methods that use saliva or urine. According to Christopher Strivens, Deputy Service Manager for NRP: “With Intelligent Fingerprinting there’s now a drug screening approach that is both non-invasive and easy to use. Fingerprint-based screening certainly looks like it will prove a valuable technology for use by drug rehabilitation services.”
Paul Yates, Intelligent Fingerprinting’s Business Development Director, added: “Norfolk Recovery Partnership has seen the benefits that our portable drug screening system can bring to drug rehabilitation services. Initial trials have shown how the Intelligent Fingerprinting system can support NRP’s requirement for a more flexible drug screening approach that will enable them to extend screening across their activities. Thanks to the portability of our system, we can also help NRP save time by enabling on location drug screening results. Critically, our technology also went through NRP’s own governance and ethics processes, and its positive acceptance by both staff and service users suggests that there’s a clear role for a screening approach that treats drug rehabilitation service users with much more dignity.”
