Appliances that are owned by employees, students, visitors should be checked before being allowed into your organisation.
You have a duty of care to ensure that the new appliance is suitable for use within your environment and also to ensure the safety of visitors. You should always be concerned whenever someone brings in an appliance; it could, after all, be damaged and thus brings with it a risk of electrical shock and could also be the catalyst for a fire starting.
Anybody bringing appliances into a workplace should be educated on the dangers. After all if a building fire is caused by a faulty appliance, the insurance company could look for a way out of its obligations to pay, particularly if you can’t prove that the appliance that started the fire or caused the shock to that person was tested!
Many colleges and universities do insist that all students’ appliances are checked prior to being allowed on the site.
Bearing in mind the above it is therefore recommended that you PAT test each electrical appliance a person brings in from home and educate them in appliance safety and the risks associated.
Written by Barry Atkins
