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History
of the Association
The
Association of Police Controlled Drugs Liaison Officers (APCDLO) was formed
in 2000 by a small group of officers to improve working
relationships with the rest of the police service and their partner
agencies to promote best practice at both national and regional
level. To help support this aim, the Association set up links with
the Association of Chief Police Officers Drugs Committee. The value
of these links was acknowledged during the Shipman Inquiry and the
Association was involved in a subsequent consultation about taking
forward the Inquiry’s recommendations.
From humble beginnings and annual conferences with 30 interested
parties the APCDLO has now gained support from the Association
of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and has grown into a professional
body whose conference in 2006 attracted over 250 delegates from
across the whole range of industry partners. The conference in
2007 at Cardiff was just as successful attracting around 250
delegates from a wide range of regulatory and healthcare providers.
The APCDLO is divided into six regions throughout England.
Each has a representative who organises regular meetings with other
regions to meet and share information and good practice. Until late
2006, the association’s remit has been to inspect retail pharmacy
outlets and some hospital pharmacies to ensure that they were
complying with the misuse of drugs and safe custody regulations in
respect of controlled drugs. However, with the introduction of the
Health Act 2006, which came into force on January 1 2007, there is a
greater emphasis on the police being involved in investigation,
intelligence and partnership working, particularly through local
intelligence networks.
Each of the new local partnerships is led by an accountable officer,
who must be a Primary Care Trust (PCT) employee working at a senior
(board) level. He/she will be responsible for establishing local
intelligence networks and adverse incident panels for their PCT
area. These will involve regulatory and inspection partners and the
police. The intelligence networks will meet when required. The
incident panels may have to meet at very short notice depending on
the seriousness of issues that arise.
All the agencies will contribute to the collection of intelligence
and information, therefore many joint inspections are anticipated.
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