UKAD conference helps keep Doping Control Personnel among the world’s best

More than 100 delegates attended UK Anti-Doping’s (UKAD’s) dedicated Doping Control Personnel Conference last week, as part of the organisation’s ongoing effort to keep its staff at the forefront of the anti-doping landscape.

95 members of UKAD’s Doping Control Personnel (DCP), including Doping Control Officers, Chaperones and Blood Collection Officers, along with guests from the Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) and UKAD staff, took part in the two-day conference in Leicester.

The event enabled UKAD to bring DCP up-to-date on latest developments in the field, including the impact of the recent Tailored Review on both the DCP scheme and UKAD itself. Delegates also heard from UKAD’s legal team, who spoke about how the work of the DCP can impact a case, and from the Deputy Director of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited King’s College London Laboratory, Alan Brailsford, who spoke about the process samples go through once they arrive at the lab, and the future of doping and scientific advancements.

UKAD’s Head of Testing, Hamish Coffey, said: “The conference forms an important part of UKAD’s ongoing development for its Doping Control Personnel (DCP). With the DCP based nationwide, it is imperative we take the time to bring everyone together to update them on UKAD’s work and policies from across the organisation, engage with a workforce that are at the front line of anti-doping, and work with our DCP to help develop UKAD’s processes and practices.

“UKAD’s DCP remain among the world’s most highly-regarded, as seen by their involvement in events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and training of Doping Control Officers at other National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs), and events such as the conference are pivotal to ensuring they remain so.”

UKAD hosts the DCP conference every 18 months, as part of maintaining its standards of best practice, and reassesses its DCP every two years in line with International Standard for Testing and Investigations (ISTI) requirements, as put in place by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).