All this will do is push blister care underground.
The same thing happened at Nijmegen in 2011 or maybe 2012. The medics the BMC had got in to man Heunensoord were not used to the event, and took an extremely over cautious approach. If a cadet went in there with even a hint of heat exhaustion, the sort of heat exhaustion that experienced team leaders knew would be fine with food, rest and water overnight, the medics were red carding them.
The result? Noone sent their kids to the med centre.
Or do we just teach cadets how to treat blisters as part of the training, the 6Ps. Its easier to prevent through training than deal with after the fact.
Yes, we absolutely should. My teams always had very few blisters, I put that down to training, pre-taping for those that needed it (I don’t and never have) and the speed at which we marched.
But, you’re still going to get some, and sometimes a quick lancing at the roadside is going to be better than walking on it. In which case, banning that treatment is going to encourage dishonesty.
This is it, I would rather treat the blister myself using sterile means, then cover and protect the area, rather than just have it burst in a dirty boot in a dirty sock which is then taken off and foot placed onto dirty ground. More risk from this approach. Maybe instead of just banning it, find out what we actually do as team leaders and mitiagte any supposed risk?
Especially as some cadets will begin to hobble or otherwise alter their gait to compensate for the untreated blister, thus leading to other, more serious muscoskeletal injuries.
I’m quite convinced that the brains behind this new announcement hasn’t recently lead a team.
i disagree - but all depends on your definition of “effective treatment”.
i have taken a look at the suggested resource (11th Edition of the First Aid Manual) and is does offer treatment options which are not rediculous.
taken from - source
as i read it, the Safety Alert does not say “do not treat blisters” it only indicates, “if treating blisters only do it this way” (ie as per the 11th Edt of the book).
I am on the fence about popping blisters, sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn’t. but covering and avoiding further growth of the blister seems sensible.
The whole thing smacks of a decision based not on evidence of harm, but someone saying “No” having heard it’s common practice.
It’s like car parking all over again.
Effective would allow someone to carry on walking on it - neither of thise treatments listed allow for that to happen, so the only thing is to red-card the cadet now. Or risk adding hours onto the days march by waiting for the very limited medics at each rest area. Ona training walk, that means the cadet being binned.
Its not a bubble wrapped, classroom based activity, so of course they want it to quietly disappear!
Get away - how dare you! 
Blister plasters would enable the injured person to carry on.
As for not bursting blisters, I think JM put it best.
However, in reality, I rarely become aware of blisters before they’ve already burst and bled all over my socks.
Blister Plasters make blisters worse in my experience.
They’re good for after the walking is completely finished (ie: after the final day of walking) but otherwise shouldn’t be used.
We’re also missing from this discussion that, for people (cadets & CFAVs) who are new to road marching, blisters are almost inevitable as they won’t know how susceptible they are nor where they’ll appear and thus where they need to tape.
Sure, those people won’t be going off to do any events during their first year (probably), but if their experience in the first year is to be binned off after an hour of walking in the cold & rain, are they likely to return the following season, or even for the next training session?
The thing is that they are only good if you have finished the march. If you use them during the march they can cause a whole raft of issues. They disintegrate under the constant pounding of each step and form little blobs of soft plastic that cause further pressure in the foot and make the blister much much more serious.
and is inline with the instructions as it is in the book - see paragraph i quote above
no one said that a Safety Case has to make sense…
I have never experienced this, but if it’s relatively common then this needs to be reported back to SJA so that they can update the book.
Though surely there’s an element of foot care management to try to get ahead of these.
Explanation of hot spots, foot inspections, shorter journey legs in the beginning, etc should build up that knowledge and experience in cadets taking part so they CAN become able to judge where and what the signs are.
Then there’s correct lacing, sock options, etc.
Believe it or not, there are still people saying crossed lacing is not British and will your throat cut by Gurkhas: despite the fact that we’ve been issuing boots for decades now that can’t even be laced the old way.
I wouldn’t say that Road Marching was common enough for SJA to update the book.
In the same way that out cat bleed training goes against the SJA book because it’s a specific case…
I disagree. If the section on blisters is wrong (according to the people with most experience in dealing with blisters), then it needs fixing.
We shouldn’t pigeonhole and have one type of first aid for the classroom and different techniques being used in practice.
