What PAT testing covers
Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) verifies that electrical equipment remains safe to keep using, combining a visual inspection (checking the plug, cable and casing for damage) with electrical tests such as earth continuity and insulation resistance. It's a routine part of workplace electrical safety programmes in many countries, applied to everything from office IT equipment to workshop power tools.
How often equipment needs testing
There is no single fixed legal interval for PAT testing in most jurisdictions — guidance such as the UK's HSE and IET Code of Practice takes a risk-based approach instead, where testing frequency depends on the equipment type, how it's used, and the environment it's used in. As a general pattern seen in commonly-cited guidance tables: low-risk equipment in an office setting (desktop PCs, monitors) is tested infrequently or mainly on visual inspection, while equipment used on a construction site or in an industrial environment — power tools, extension leads — is tested far more often, sometimes every few months, because of the harsher conditions and higher consequence of a fault. Always confirm the specific interval that applies under your own organisation's policy or the regulation that governs your site.
Choosing accessories: labels, cables, software
PAT tester accessories fall into three practical groups. Pass/fail and printed record labels provide the physical paper trail on the equipment itself. Compliance and reporting software downloads and manages results from a compatible tester, useful for organisations that need a searchable digital record for audits or client reporting rather than a paper register. Hardware accessories — test cables, adaptors, barcode scanners, label printers — extend or maintain the tester itself. Because almost all of these are tied to a specific tester model or family (a label printer built for one manufacturer's tester range typically won't work with another), always specify the exact tester make and model when ordering.