AS/NZS 3760 is the Australian and New Zealand standard for in-service safety inspection and testing of electrical equipment — what most people just call “test and tag”. It sets out how a competent person inspects, tests and labels electrical equipment that’s already in use, so a frayed cord or a failing power board gets caught before it hurts someone.

The current edition is AS/NZS 3760:2022, published on 8 June 2022. It replaced the 2010 version after a full revision, and the title now includes RCDs — the safety switches that cut power when something goes wrong. If your last test-and-tag round was quoted against the 2010 standard, you’re working from a document that’s been retired.

It applies almost everywhere electrical equipment is used — offices, factories, and yes, healthcare facilities. But for a clinic, there’s a catch worth understanding before you book anything.

Here’s the part clinics get wrong, and it matters.

AS/NZS 3760 excludes medical equipment. Your ECG, your defibrillator, your patient monitors — they’re not tested under 3760. They fall under AS/NZS 3551, the standard built specifically for medical electrical equipment, because a device a patient is physically connected to needs a stricter check than a desktop PC.

So 3760 covers everything else plugged in around your practice:

• Computers, monitors, printers
• Fridges and medication refrigerators (the appliance’s electrical safety — not the temperature monitoring)
• Power boards and extension leads
• Kettles, microwaves, staff-room appliances
• Vacuum cleaners and cleaning equipment
• Chargers, lamps, fans, heaters

The takeaway: a compliant clinic needs both. AS/NZS 3551 for the medical devices, AS/NZS 3760 for the general electrical equipment. Book one without the other and you’ve still got a gap your assessor can find. We do both in a single onsite visit, so there’s nothing to coordinate and nothing left uncovered.

AS/NZS 3760 doesn’t set one blanket interval. It bases the frequency on the environment and how hard the equipment’s life is — the rougher the use, the more often it’s checked. The standard’s tables run from every few months for the highest-risk gear out to several years for low-risk equipment that sits on a desk and never moves.

A rough sense of how that scales:

Healthcare environments generally sit toward the more frequent end, because equipment moves between rooms, gets cleaned constantly, and runs all day. We set the right interval for each piece against the standard and then track it for you, so nothing quietly lapses.

The 2022 revision wasn’t cosmetic. A few changes matter for any practice booking the service:

Record-keeping got real. A third-party tester now has to document the actual measurements from each test — earth continuity resistance, insulation resistance, leakage current — not just stamp it “pass”. You should be receiving real data, not a tick.

Equipment registers. Keeping a register of what’s been tested moved from good habit to expectation. (We keep yours as part of every visit, so this one’s already handled.)

Calibrated testers. The standard tightened the rules on the testing instruments themselves — they have to be verified against a calibrated source, within the manufacturer’s timeframes. A tester using out-of-cal equipment can’t give you a result you can trust.

Competent person. The definition of who’s allowed to test and tag was expanded — they’re expected to keep their skills current and understand the electrical risks they’re assessing, not just follow a checklist.

If whoever’s doing your test and tag is still handing you pass/fail stickers and no measurements, they’re working to a standard that no longer exists.

Heres what a test & tag actually involves

Step 1 — Visual inspection. Every item is checked by eye first — frayed cords, cracked casings, bent plug pins, damaged power boards. A lot of faults are caught here before a meter ever touches the device.

Step 2 — Electrical testing. The device is tested for earth continuity, insulation resistance, polarity and current leakage — the checks that prove it’s safe to touch and safe to run.

Step 3 — Tagging. Anything that passes gets a tag showing the test date, the next due date, and who tested it. Anyone can see at a glance that it’s current.

Step 4 — Documentation. The real measurements are logged against your asset register, and anything that failed is flagged for repair or replacement and pulled from service. You finish the visit knowing exactly where you stand.

We’re a biomedical service organisation first, which means we’re already at your practice testing the medical equipment under AS/NZS 3551. Adding 3760 test and tag to the same visit is the efficient move — one technician, one booking, one combined record, both standards covered.

You get measurements not stickers, a live asset register, and automated reminders before anything’s due again. We’ve done this for over 3,500 healthcare sites across NSW, ACT, VIC, QLD, NT and SA for more than twenty years, metro to remote, with no surprise travel fees.