This can be considered for people working from home due to Covid, or people who simply work from home. Just because your staff are no longer in the office, it doesn’t mean that their safety shouldn’t be your concern any more.

UK Health and Safety requirements still apply whether a person is in the office, at home, or anywhere else. Pre-covid people worked from home, engineers in their vans, etc. and their employers were still responsible for them.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974; employers are still liable if an employee gets injured whilst working from home.

We have a lot of experience visiting people’s homes to PAT test equipment there, from landlords’ appliances to office workers. We understand the risks and do our best to protect the home owners and tenants. We are there just to make sure their equipment is safe.

Whilst it is best to check equipment in situ so we can see the set up is correct, we also understand that some may not want us in their homes, so they can bring the appliances outside to be checked.

1. We arrive at the arranged time; the engineer wipes the handles of the box and the inside area (and any other area that might be touched), washes his hands and puts on a pair of clean gloves. He carries the box to the front door, rings the bell (or knocks) and backs away beyond 2 metres.
2. The client opens the door, they are aware of what to do, but if not we can explain; they should put their appliances in the box, then close their door.
3. The engineer takes the box to the car / van to conduct the necessary inspection, tests and maintenance. Applies labels as normal, wipes each appliance touched, and put the appliances back in the box. He then carries the box back to the door, rings the bell and steps back 2 metres.
4. The client opens the door and takes their equipment out of the box. Some pleasantries may be exchanged and then the client closes the door.
5. The engineer collects the box, returns to his vehicle, wipes the box, puts the wipes in the bin, removes his gloves and puts them in the bin, then washes his hands for more than 20 seconds using hand sanitiser.

This process can just as easily work in your office car park if you don’t want us going to staff houses;

We arrange staggered arrival times, the person pulls up in their car, we put the box down, they fill it up and get back in the car; then we take it away, test it and return it. We would do this working as a team, so we can have a steady flow of vehicles and no hold ups.

This is by far the easiest way, although we’re not going to be able to check their set up – get staff to come in to the office, to bring their kit with them to be checked. Although we actually wouldn’t recommend this option because

• equipment could get damaged on the way home
• we can’t check their set up for overloaded sockets

Arranging safe PAT testing couldn’t be easier. There is a form below to complete, if you do that then we will contact you to discuss the process, prices and make the arrangements.

Safe PAT testing prices are dependent on what we have to do; whether we’re visiting houses or working from one location, how many engineers we have on the job, how many properties we have to visit, how many we can do in an allotted time, what the travel times are, etc.

You would need to provide us with staff addresses and advise staff that this is happening (we can provide email templates); then if you can give us mobile numbers or emails we can send each person a guidance message to what will happen and our estimated arrival time.

If you also have equipment still in your permanent workplace, that you want inspecting too, whilst the premises are empty, we can arrange to do that too.

Home visits provide a unique opportunity to carry out Covid-safe PAT testing of electrical equipment provided by companies for their staff to use whilst working from home.

This system works just as well for engineer’s equipment in vans, mobile hair dressers, and so on; we’re very flexible with it to meet you requirements.

We follow government guidance at all times

• Our engineers where face masks at all times; we may take them off if working alone in large ventilated areas
• We wash our hands on entering a facility, sanitise them before touching equipment / entering a new section to protect you, and then do it again afterwards to protect ourselves; that’s as a minimum, we actually tend to wash our hands more than that. We always followed these procedures pre-Covid anyway, so now we just do it even more.
• We keep our distance at all times, and expect you to do the same.
• We can wear gloves if required, although we feel washing hands reduces the risk of germs being spread – gloves don’t tend to get washed.

Please advise your colleagues/staff that we are coming so they are ready to vacate work areas when we need access, to reduce time spent in the same areas.