COVER STORY
UP TO THE PAT TEST
Amy Lyons of Seaward looks at the range of PAT test instrumentation options now available to help maintain safety in the workplace.
The Electricity At Work Regulations 1989, along with the accompanying guidance notes and codes of practice, have provided the basis for effective and sensible preventative maintenance regimes that ensure electrical safety in the workplace.
Against this background continuous innovation in portable appliance testing (PAT) technology means that those responsible for maintaining safety at work now have plenty of options available.
A PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE Clearly, combined inspection and testing measures should be appropriate to the particular risk posed by the equipment and its environment. For example, smaller offices or workplaces with only a
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few electrical appliances, and a staff of limited technical ability, might be regarded as relatively low risk environments. Here a responsible attitude might be regarded as a regular process of formal user checks and visual inspection, combined with some limited periodic testing.
A different view, however, might need to be taken by a large organisation, with different departments having many different types of electrical equipment used by staff.
To meet this need, continuous technical innovation has ensured that portable appliance test instrumentation has kept pace with the changing demands of the workplace to meet the needs of everyone who has a responsibility for ensuring the safe use of electrical equipment.
In this case,
ensuring the safety of appliances may not only be a matter of ensuring the correct test equipment is available, but also having the ability to show that the right tests have been performed at the right time in the correct sequence – with records of test levels and results.
WHICH TESTER IS BEST? Choosing the right tester can depend on a number of factors; budget is clearly a consideration, but of more importance is the size and type of organisation, the number and type of equipment to be tested, the competency of whoever will be carrying out the testing and whether formal computerised records will be maintained.
At the basic level, manual PAT test instruments are available as relatively
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