Manar El Kholy

The Immediate Life Support (ILS) course provides healthcare staff with the essential knowledge and skills needed to treat adult patients in cardiorespiratory  arrest  for  the short time before the arrival of a resuscitation team or more experienced assistance. It also prepares healthcare staff to be members of a resuscitation team.

Many cardiorespiratory arrests are preventable. ILS teaches the recognition and treatment of the deteriorating patient using the ABCDE (Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability and Exposure) approach. ILS knowledge and skills will enable first responders to recognise and start treatment in patients at risk of deterioration and cardiac arrest. If cardiorespiratory arrest does occur, the skills covered are those that are most likely to resuscitate the patient.

The manual is predominantly about the resuscitation of patients in the acute hospital setting. The same principles, however, apply to the resuscitation of patients in any clinical setting, e.g. community hospital.

The interventions that contribute to survival after a cardiac arrest can be seen as a chain – the Chain of Survival.

The chain is only as strong as its weakest link; all four links of the Chain of Survival must be strong. They are:

• Early recognition and call for help – to prevent cardiac arrest
• Early cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) – to buy time
• Early defibrillation – to restart the heart
• Post resuscitation care – to restore quality of life

The ILS course will teach you the important knowledge and skills for each link in the Chain of Survival.

ILS teaches how to start cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the clinical setting. This includes the importance of good quality chest compressions and ventilation with minimal interruption, and early safe defibrillation.

There is now a much greater emphasis on non-technical skills and human factors. These are the things that affect your personal performance such as situational awareness, decision-making, team working and task management.

from the introduction of the ILS manual. This manual is a property of ILS and copy which has, exclusively,  all the copyrights. Any distribution of those materials outside the ERC umbrella will be considered a violation of law.