The sticker says passed. The QR tells the truth: PAT labels that stay current

Quick answer. A PAT label is optional, and HSE guidance says it should not carry a next-test-due date. Hovermarks now prints small QR labels that fit a plug (40 × 25 mm) or wrap round a cable as a flag. Scanning one shows the appliance's live status, so the label can't go out of date. Blank label rolls, a fast PAT session for testers and an import for PAT tester CSV exports complete the workflow.

Look at the plug on almost any office kettle and you'll find a small green sticker: PASSED, an appliance number, a test date, the tester's initials, and a next-test-due date written in biro.

It tells you what was true on the day it was written, and nothing since. If the kettle failed a check last week, or the due date has passed, or the sticker was peeled off another appliance, the label still says PASSED. The record that matters is somewhere else: a spreadsheet, a contractor's software, a folder.

What the law and HSE actually ask for

The legal duty is about maintenance, not stickers. Regulation 4(2) of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 requires electrical systems to be maintained so as to prevent danger, so far as is reasonably practicable. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 require work equipment to be kept in good repair.

Portable appliance testing (PAT) is how most organisations show they do that, but HSE is clear that the law doesn't require PAT as such, or a fixed annual test. HSE's guidance suggests starting intervals by type of equipment and where it is used, which you then adjust to your own risk assessment: see how often PAT testing needs to be done, with HSE's table and a due date checker. Landlords have extra rules in some nations, covered in PAT testing for landlords.

On labels, HSE's guidance on maintaining portable electrical equipment (HSG107) says a label is optional. If you use one, it should show that the item passed and when, but "there should not be a next test due date on it". The person responsible for the equipment sets the interval, and a printed date quietly becomes wrong when the interval changes.

The same guidance says equipment that fails should be clearly labelled so nobody uses it.

A label that points at the record

Hovermarks has always given each asset a QR code that opens its live record: last inspection, result, defects, next due. The problem with PAT was size. A standard QR label doesn't fit a 13 A plug.

So we made three changes.

Short scan links. A QR code gets denser as the link inside it gets longer. Small labels now carry a short link: our own address plus a random 10-character code. That lets the QR shrink to about 15 mm across while still scanning reliably on ordinary phones. The code is random, so nobody can guess another appliance's link, and revoking an asset's QR code stops its short links too.

Two new label shapes:

• A small plug label (40 × 25 mm), for the back or top of the plug body.
• A cable flag that folds round the lead and sticks to itself, with the same QR on both halves so it reads from either side. It also prints our web address, which makes a fake sticker over a real one easier to spot.

The labels show the appliance's code, name and location, and "Scan for live status". There's no pass mark and never a next-due date, as HSE suggests. If you want the test date on the label, an organisation setting (off by default) adds it with the tester's initials, for example "Tested 03/11/2026 · JS", on labels printed after a passed test. Blank labels on the larger roll sizes can carry a "Tested ____ Sign ____" line to fill in by hand. When your staff scan it, they see the full record: current result, the next due date set by your schedule, and any open defect. You decide what the public sees, for example an "In date" or "Overdue: do not use" badge.

Where to stick them. Keep labels off the pins, the fuse carrier, the cover screw, the cord grip and the plug's own markings, so they don't stop the plug seating or hide anything an inspector needs to see. Keep cable flags short and a little way back from the plug, so they don't look like tape on a damaged cable. The QR always sits flat, never wrapped round the cable. Polyester labels printed with a ribbon last; direct-thermal paper fades.

Built for testing a building in a day

A PAT tester might do 80 to 300 items in a day. Anything that slows them down won't be used, so the rest of the work went into speed.

Blank label rolls. Print hundreds of numbered QR labels in advance. On site, the first scan by someone in your organisation registers the appliance there and then: name, location and class, and you're testing. To anyone else, a blank label just says it isn't active. It reveals nothing about who owns it.

A PAT session. On a phone or tablet: pick the site, scan the label, record class, visual check, earth continuity, insulation and polarity, then Pass or Fail. Save & next moves straight to the next item, and the class and tester are remembered between items. Each save is a normal inspection, so defects, next-due dates and alerts work exactly as they do everywhere else. Failures arrive as one summary at the end of the session, not an email per kettle.

"Do not use" labels. When an item fails, the session queues a DO NOT USE label showing FAILED, the date and the reason. Labels print together at the end as one sheet, which is far quicker than printing one at a time from a phone.

Import from your PAT tester. Most PAT instruments export results to their own software, which can save a CSV file. Upload it, match the columns once (Hovermarks remembers the matching), check the preview, and each row becomes a completed PAT inspection on the right appliance, clearly marked as imported. Importing the same file twice creates nothing new.

Why it hasn't been done this way before

QR codes on PAT labels aren't new. PAT instruments have printed barcodes and QR codes for years, but the code usually holds an ID for the maker's own app, or packs the test results into a code big enough to need a large label. What's uncommon is a plug-sized label that opens a live record anyone can check without an app or a login.

The reasons look practical, not technical. PAT is priced per item and done at speed, records tend to live in each instrument maker's software, and phones only learned to scan QR codes from the camera around 2017. None of that is a safety reason, and we found no guidance against labelling plugs or cables when the labels are placed sensibly.

Getting started

Everything here is available on every Hovermarks plan, including the free trial (PAT testing in Hovermarks has the detail):

1. Choose Small plug label or Cable flag in the label layout list for any asset, or print a blank roll.
2. Start a PAT session from the Inspections page.
3. Or import your tester's CSV export.

The help pages cover placement, label stock and each step in detail. If you're deciding who should do the testing, see who can do PAT testing.

The sticker can say passed. The scan tells you whether that's still true.