The second was the river. Still. Flat. Like a millpond. Not a ripple.

And I stood there for a minute thinking about the calls we get.

Almost every new client we hear from contacts us after something has already happened. An employee arrives on site and something's clearly not right. A substance is found. There's an accident, or a near-miss, and suddenly the question of whether anyone was impaired becomes legally very important very quickly.

That's when the phone rings.

And we go in. We do what needs doing. We help them get through it - in the right way, with the right equipment, the right documentation, the right process. That part we can handle.

But the conversation I wish we'd had was the one six months earlier, when nothing was wrong.

The calm is the problem, really.

When everything's fine, testing doesn't feel urgent. There's no incident pushing it up the agenda. No positive result to deal with. No tribunal letter on someone's desk. So the policy stays in the folder it's been in since 2019, the process never gets documented, and managers carry on not quite knowing what they'd do if they had a concern.

And then something happens.

I've spoken to HR managers who've been in exactly that position. Result in hand. No policy to refer to. No documented process. No independent collection. And the result - even if accurate - is almost impossible to act on, because every step that should have been taken before it happened, wasn't.

That's not a testing problem. That's a preparation problem.

The sectors we work in - manufacturing, construction, transport, logistics - they're not complacent. These are people with robust health and safety processes, risk assessments, procedures for everything. But testing is one of those things that often sits on the list marked we'll sort that when we need to.

The trouble is, by the time you need to, you're already in reactive mode. And reactive mode is expensive, stressful, and - if the process behind it isn't right - potentially unwinnable.

What we're doing when we go into a workplace that's calm, that doesn't have an immediate problem, is building something that'll hold. Getting the policy right so it actually reflects what the company does. Making sure the process is documented. Making sure managers understand what to do if they have a concern - and what not to do, which is sometimes just as important.

It's pointless if you're not going to do it properly. The testing, the policy, the training - all of it.

That river won't stay flat forever.

If you've got a programme you haven't looked at in a while, or nothing formal in place at all, we're happy to have a conversation about where things stand. No obligation - just an honest look at what you've got and whether it would hold up if it needed to.

You can get in touch at lemoncherry.co.uk

Catherine Lambert is the Managing Director of Lemon Cherry, an independent workplace drug and alcohol screening company operating across the UK and internationally.