AED Maintenance Checklist
One register for every defibrillator on site, written so a pad expiry is never the reason a device fails.
- Pad and battery expiry per unit, with the days left counting down
- Anything under ninety days gets an order raised now
- Fifteen checks on every unit, every month
- A restore procedure for after the device has been used
AED Maintenance Checklist
Every unit, every month
| # | Monthly check | Pass | Fail | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Status or readiness indicator showing ready | |||
| 2 | Adult pads sealed, undamaged and in date | |||
| 3 | Route to the device unobstructed and lit |
The document you will get. Download for the full, editable file.
Who this AED checklist is for
Four people rely on this, and the one who needs it most will never have read it.
Programme coordinator
You own the register. Expiry dates and days left are the two columns that turn a pile of devices into something you can budget and order for.
Trained responder
You will use it under pressure. Readiness indicator, pads in date and an unobstructed route are the three things that decide whether it works when you get there.
Facilities or site manager
You are responsible for the equipment being where it says it is. Signage, the route and cabinet access are the lines that fail without anybody noticing.
Clinical or medical oversight
You govern the programme. Responder training currency, ambulance service registration and the post-use restore record are what you check.
Which field matters the most in your sector
The check is the same everywhere. What changes is the line that fails most often, and it is usually a consequence of who is around the device. If you run one of these, the sector page goes further than the template does.
- Retail and malls
Signage and the route. In a large public building, a device nobody can find in ninety seconds is a device that is not there.
Retail maintenance software - Education
Paediatric pads or key. Where children are present this is not an optional line, and it has its own expiry date.
Campus maintenance software - Commercial real estate
The unit register. Across a portfolio the value is one list of every device and every expiry, not a folder per building.
Portfolio maintenance software - Corporate facilities
Responder training expiry. Devices outlive the people trained to use them, and the earliest expiry is the one that matters.
Corporate facilities software - Healthcare
The self-test record and clinical oversight. Documented device readiness is expected to be evidenced, not asserted.
Healthcare maintenance software - Religious organisations
Cabinet access. Buildings used intermittently by volunteers are where a locked cabinet and a missing key go unnoticed for months.
Facilities software for religious organisations
What an AED check should cover
An AED maintenance checklist keeps a defibrillator ready between the day it is installed and the day somebody needs it. It registers every unit with its pad and battery expiry dates, counts the days remaining, runs fifteen checks on each device monthly, and sets out how to restore a unit after it has been used.
A. Fields specific to an AED check
| Field | What goes in it | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|---|
| Unit register | Unit ID, location, make and model, serial number | Turns devices into an inventory. Without IDs, a check records that the AEDs were fine rather than which one was fine. |
| Pad expiry and battery expiry | A date for each, per unit | The two components that fail silently. Everything else on the check is visible on the device; these two are only visible on a label. |
| Days left | Calculated from the expiry date against today | The column that does the work. A date in the future is easy to ignore; a number counting down below ninety is not. |
| Readiness indicator and self-test record | What the device says about itself, and whether anything failed since the last check | An AED tests itself and reports the result. Reading that is faster and more reliable than inspecting the device by eye. |
| Cabinet or case condition | Undamaged, and unlocked or breakable as designed | A device present but locked behind a keyed cabinet nobody can open has failed the check even if every other line passed. |
| Case contents | Razor, shears, gloves, face shield, towel, wipes | The consumables that go missing quietly. Pads on a wet or hairy chest do not adhere, which is what the razor and towel are for. |
| Paediatric pads or key | Where the site requires them | A separate item with its own expiry. Sites with children need it, and it is the line most often absent from a generic device check. |
| Route and signage | Directional signs along the route, and the route lit and unobstructed | Retrieval time is part of readiness. A device four minutes away is a different device from one ninety seconds away. |
| Responder training expiry | The earliest expiry across trained responders | Equipment readiness and people readiness expire on separate clocks, and the earliest date is the one that limits the programme. |
| Restore after use | What has to be replaced and re-checked once a device has been used | A used AED is not a ready AED. Pads are single-use, the battery may be depleted, and the data needs retrieving before the unit goes back. |
If you cut the check down, keep the expiry register and the days-left column. Every other line on this form describes something a person can see when they walk past the device. Pad and battery expiry are printed on a label in small type, and they are the two things that will actually be wrong on the day it matters.
B. What it looks like filled in
The unit register for a four-device site. The days-left columns are calculated against today's date, so they are shown here as at 3 September 2026.
| Unit ID | Location | Pad expiry | Days left | Battery expiry | Days left |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AED-01 | Main reception, east wall | 30/04/2027 | 239 | 31/08/2027 | 362 |
| AED-02 | Level 2 lift lobby | 15/11/2026 | 73 | 31/03/2027 | 209 |
| AED-03 | Workshop, by the first aid station | 28/02/2027 | 178 | 30/09/2026 | 27 |
| AED-04 | Gatehouse | 31/07/2027 | 331 | 31/07/2027 | 331 |
Four units, and two of them need an order raised today. AED-02's pads sit at seventy-three days, inside the ninety-day threshold, so they get ordered now rather than at the next monthly check. AED-03's battery is worse at twenty-seven days, which is close enough that a delayed delivery leaves a live gap. Read the register rather than the individual dates and the pattern is obvious: AED-01 and AED-04 need nothing for months, so one order covers the two that do. That is the whole reason the days-left columns exist, and they recalculate every time the spreadsheet is opened.
Word to add units or match your own programme, Excel to let the days-left columns count down on their own, PDF for the folder by the device. Free, and yours to rebrand.
How do you run an AED check?
Do it monthly, walk to each device rather than working from a list, and start with the register because the two things most likely to be wrong are printed on labels. Six steps.
Fill in the programme details first
Site, the month and year of this check, who is doing it, how many units are on site, and clinical oversight where the programme requires it. Then the earliest responder training expiry, because people readiness expires separately from equipment.
Update the register and read the days left
Unit ID, location, make and model, serial number, pad expiry and battery expiry for every unit. The days-left columns recalculate themselves; you are reading them, not working them out.
Raise orders for anything under ninety days
Not at the next check. A pad order that arrives after the expiry date has cost a month of readiness, and pads are not something to expedite.
Walk to each device and run the fifteen checks
Present, cabinet undamaged and openable, readiness indicator, no alarm or fault light, self-test record clear, adult pads and a spare in date, paediatric pads where required, battery and spare, case contents complete, device clean, signage, route, and the responder list current.
Treat access as part of readiness
A device present but locked in a cabinet nobody can open has failed, and so has one at the end of an unlit corridor with no directional signs. Record those as failures, not as observations.
If a unit has been used, restore it before it goes back
Replace the pads, check or replace the battery, retrieve the data, clean the device, and re-run the monthly check on it. A used AED is not a ready AED until that is done.
The monthly check versus the manufacturer's service
Two different things happen to an AED over its life, and only one of them is this checklist.
| Aspect | The monthly check | The manufacturer's service |
|---|---|---|
| Who does it | Anyone competent on site | The manufacturer or an approved agent |
| How often | Every month | To the manufacturer's schedule, if any |
| What it covers | Readiness: presence, indicator, pads, battery, access | Internal diagnostics, firmware, calibration |
| What it needs | Eyes, the register and five minutes per unit | Tools, parts and manufacturer authorisation |
| What it catches | Expiring consumables and blocked access | Component faults the self-test cannot report |
| If you only do one | You will catch almost everything that actually fails | You will miss expired pads for months |
Most AEDs that fail do not fail electronically. They fail because the pads expired, the battery expired, the cabinet was locked, the device had been moved, or nobody had replaced the pads after the last use. All five of those are caught by a five-minute monthly check and none of them needs a technician, which is why the monthly check is the one that must not be skipped.
When the template starts to feel limiting
A sheet handles one month well. It handles a programme of devices across sites badly, and always in the same four ways.
Expiry dates cannot warn you
The days-left column only counts down while the file is open. Nothing tells you in December that a pad expires in February, so ordering depends on somebody opening the spreadsheet and reading it.
The register drifts from reality
Devices get moved, added and replaced. A printed register goes out of date the first time somebody relocates a unit, and the check then confirms devices that are no longer there.
Post-use restoration goes unverified
A device used in an emergency generates urgent tasks and a lot of noise. Whether the pads were actually replaced afterwards is exactly the thing that gets assumed rather than checked.
You cannot see readiness across sites
How many units are within ninety days of an expiry, across every building, right now. That is one question with one answer, and a folder of monthly sheets cannot give it.
What running this in Facilio looks like
The template is the paper version of this register. The fields are the same ones; the difference is that an expiry date stops being a number you have to go and read and becomes something the system raises for you.
Ops Performance Intelligence
Expiry dates raise their own work
Pad, battery, paediatric pad and responder training dates each carry their own lead time, so an order is raised before the ninety-day threshold rather than whenever somebody next opens the file.
Work Completion Validator
A monthly check cannot close with units unaccounted for
On paper a check is done when the sheet is signed. Work Completion Validator holds the check against the device register for that site, so a unit skipped or a failed line closed without an action is caught rather than filed.
Contractor Work Tracker
Post-use restoration is tracked as work
Using a device generates a defined set of tasks: replace pads, check the battery, retrieve the data, re-check the unit. Those become work with an owner instead of an assumption made during a busy week.
Audit Report Intelligence
Readiness across every site becomes one answer
Units within ninety days of an expiry, checks completed this month, failures still open: held as data rather than as a folder of sheets, so an insurer or a governance review gets a number instead of a search.
Hallucination-free by design. Atom AI answers from the records in your tenant rather than generating plausible text, so an empty field reads as empty rather than filled in for you.
Frequently asked questions
What is an AED maintenance checklist?
An AED maintenance checklist is a monthly readiness check for every defibrillator on a site. It registers each unit with its location, make, model and serial number, records the pad and battery expiry dates with the days remaining, and runs fifteen checks per device covering presence, cabinet access, the readiness indicator, the self-test record, pads, battery, case contents, signage and the route.
It also covers what has to happen after a device has been used, because a used AED is not a ready one.
What should an AED check cover?
The programme details: site, month, who checked it, the number of units, clinical oversight where required, trained responders and the earliest training expiry, ambulance service registration and the date of the last drill. Then the register: unit ID, location, make and model, serial number, pad expiry and days left, battery expiry and days left. Then fifteen monthly checks per unit. Then the expiry and reorder actions, and the restore procedure for after any use.
How often should an AED be checked?
Monthly is the working standard, and it is what this checklist is built around. A monthly walk to each device takes about five minutes per unit and catches everything that commonly fails.
Expiry dates should be reviewed at the same time, but acted on earlier: anything inside ninety days needs an order raised at that check rather than the next one.
Why does the days-left column matter more than the expiry date?
Because a date in 2027 reads as far away and a number counting down below ninety does not. The column recalculates against today every time the spreadsheet is opened, so the urgency is stated rather than inferred.
It also lets you batch. Read the register rather than each unit and you can see which devices need nothing for months and which two need one combined order today.
Is a locked AED cabinet a failure?
Yes. A device that is present but locked behind a keyed cabinet nobody can open has failed the check, even if every other line passed.
The same applies to a device at the end of an unlit corridor with no directional signage. Retrieval time is part of readiness, so access and signage are checks rather than notes.
What has to happen after an AED has been used?
Replace the pads, because they are single use. Check or replace the battery, since a delivered shock draws heavily on it. Retrieve the event data if the device stores it. Clean the unit, restock the case, and then run the full monthly check on it before it goes back on the wall.
Until all of that is done the device is on the wall but not in service, which is the most dangerous state an AED can be in.
Can I edit and rebrand this template?
Yes. It is free to use, edit, rename and put your own logo on, internally or for clients. No attribution required.
The Word version is the one to edit if you want to add units, change the check list or match your own programme requirements; the Excel version is the one to use if you want the days-left columns to count down against today's date on their own.
In one paragraph
An AED spends years untouched and then has one job, so this check is about the two things that fail silently. Start with the register: every unit with its ID, location, model, serial number, and the expiry dates for its pads and its battery, with the days left counting down against today. Anything inside ninety days gets ordered at that check, not the next one. Then walk to each device and run the fifteen checks, treating a locked cabinet or an unlit route as a failure rather than a note, because retrieval time is part of readiness. And if a unit has been used, replace the pads, check the battery, retrieve the data and re-check it before it goes back, because a used AED is not a ready one.
The template is the floor, not the ceiling
Take the checklist; it will keep one site's devices in date and evidenced. When a spreadsheet per site stops being enough, a connected CMMS runs the programme: expiry dates that raise their own orders, monthly checks that cannot close with a unit skipped, and readiness across every building as a single number.
