Our reception area is manned with only 1 staff member therefore we have a battery powered hand held panic alarm available, does anyone know how often we should test it?

Is it an audible panic alarm (so emits a loud noise if activated) or is it linked to something / someone i.e. sends out a text message to a colleague when activated? for that you could get them to test once a week (like the fire alarm test) or on a predefined date each month perhaps.

If it's linked to the police or a call centre that might be harder to do more regularly but wouldn't be impossible (though would likely be less frequent - perhaps once every 6 months?)

If it's one of the simple audible alarms then I'd assume the battery would last at least a year so could try setting it off when there are people around every 6 months or so? That way they'd be able to hear whether it was working or not and also let people working nearby hear what it actually sounds like (again, predefined date with those likely to be in the area aware it's being tested).

I would test it about once a week. This is so that a) people are familiar with what it sounds like and b) you know it works! I have been involved in a number of systems which haven’t been tested for years ( man trapped alarms,  emergency call points etc) which everybody knew were in working order until they were needed and then they failed! This was due to age of components or deactivated “temporarily”   a few years ago or simply wired wrongly.