As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create a drugs and alcohol policy for your UK staff.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your existing staff handbook, disciplinary procedure, health and safety policy, data protection policy and relevant risk assessments, then note the organisation name, work locations, roles, safety-critical duties and any driving or lone-working arrangements.
   2. Gather your current rules on alcohol, drugs, medication, testing, disclosure, support, sickness absence, reasonable adjustments and disciplinary action, including any contracts or collective agreements that refer to them.
   3. Paste the gathered information into the prompt and replace unknown facts with [TO CONFIRM] rather than asking the model to fill them in.
   4. Ask the chatbot to produce the policy, assumptions list, source-check list and implementation checklist requested in the prompt.
   5. Compare each legal or procedural statement with current GOV.UK, HSE and ACAS guidance opened separately, and remove any claim the sources do not support.
   6. Ask an employment solicitor or suitably qualified HR professional to check testing, consent, confidentiality, disability and medication issues, disciplinary fairness, consultation and the fit with your risk assessments.
   7. Amend the policy with the reviewer and your actual reporting contacts, approval route, training arrangements and review date, then obtain the required internal approval before sending it to staff.

   Prompt

   Draft a drugs and alcohol policy for a UK workplace as at 2026-08-13. The policy is for [organisation name], which has [number and types of workers] working in [locations and work settings]. The main roles and risks are [roles, safety-critical work, driving, machinery, lone working or other relevant risks]. We currently have these related policies and procedures: [list]. Our proposed approach is [rules on possession, use, impairment, testing, prescription medication, disclosure, support, investigation and disciplinary action].
   
   Produce a practical policy in plain British English with these sections: purpose and scope; definitions; prohibited conduct; prescription and over-the-counter medication; safety-critical work; disclosure and support; reasonable adjustments; testing and consent; handling of results and confidentiality; reporting and immediate safety steps; investigation; suspension or removal from duties; disciplinary process; data protection; training; roles and responsibilities; complaints and review. Distinguish alcohol and illegal drugs from lawful medication, and do not treat a positive test as proof of impairment or misconduct without a fair process.
   
   Do not invent legal requirements, testing methods, thresholds, statistics, contacts or internal procedures. Mark missing information as [TO CONFIRM]. Identify every assumption and list the points that need checking against current GOV.UK, HSE and ACAS guidance, our contracts, risk assessments, insurance and data protection arrangements. State clearly where an employment solicitor or suitably qualified HR professional should review the policy before it is issued. Include a short implementation checklist and a version-control block. This is a drafting aid, not professional advice.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.