Posted By Martin Taylor Following a improvement in the profile of accident reporting we have 'discovered' a high level of hand cuts from handling cardboard in wrapping components ~ 2 per week. In response we are trialling some gloves - task needs a good degree of dexterity so gloves need to allow normal duties to be carried out. My question is what is the worst foreseeable accident from cardboard cuts? Clearly if using knives, handling glass, handling steel sheet one might expect a risk of deep lacerations and tendon/nerve damage. Does anybody have experience of cardboard or paper cuts being anything more serious than just that - a cut. thanks Martin

Posted By LMR Paper cut to finger. Cut wrapped in fuse tape (wrong thing to do but only thing in the cab at the time!!!!) effective and inventive . . . however . . . blood poisoning and hospitalisation ANY cut not looked at and cleaned has the potential to turn nasty.

Posted By Chris Packham Martin Try providing the type of glove I suggested on the basis that this is being done for your workers' benefit and see what acceptance you get. My experience is that once the users realise that these are quite comfortable to wear and avoid the cuts then they will tend to wear them. Chris

Posted By Taff2 From my understanding you can only get paper cuts from poor quality paper - or paper cut in a poor / cheap manner. Have you looked at eliminating the hazard at source?

Posted By Paul Darby There are a vast array of gloves on the market to allow dexteriry to be maintained, however I would strongly urge you to avoid going down the route that a small cut may become infected, your employee will get blood poisoning and die. A paper cut is not a fatal risk, I feel most RA's should show it as a probable risk of a minor injury. If you were handling cow manure that would affect the risk of infection, but you are not. In my company (a division of an extremely large and very well known organisation), we have identified paper cuts as very low risk, requiring no further action. The reason for this is that we face far more serious risk than this, hence in getting our priorities right, we have decided it is not on the radar at the moment. I would prefer our managers efforts to be focused in other directions. I hope that one day it reaches the top of the list, but I don't think it ever will! I am not suggesting that is the view you should take, as clearly you are receiving more notable injuries from a specific process, not general office work. However I feel that for most locations, by the time you are worrying about paper cuts your general safety management should be excellent.

Posted By Paul Darby I agree totally. My response was generally aimed at the issue of avoiding everything becoming a fatal risk, because if you persued every hazard being realised to its full potential then everything has the ultimate possibility of becoming a fatal risk, which is very poor safety management. As a very senior guy within the HSE once taught me, "In risk assessment focus on what is probable, not possible, as some very extreme things are possible!" He summed it up by asking if I had risk assessed the chance of my building collapsing without warning. I said no, to which he replied that is a good example of something which does happen, so it is possible, but is so rare that it is really not probable, hence to get the priorities right.