Level 4 Award in Immediate Life Support

Qualsafe’s Immediate Life Support course gives you the knowledge and skills associated with providing immediate life support to patients in cardiorespiratory arrest or experiencing life-threatening
illness and injury.

If you have a specific responsibility to provide emergency care to patients requiring emergency and urgent care/treatment, this qualification will provide you with the practical skills and underpinning knowledge to do so safely. Examples roles are event medical providers, emergency ambulance personnel, registered healthcare professionals and specialist roles withiin the military & other emergency services.

This qualification and learning outcomes are based on the guidance of:

• Resuscitation Council (UK)
• UK Ambulance Services Clinical Practice Guidelines

By the end of the course, you’ll be able to demonstrate the clinical knowledge and skills when responding and providing immediate life support to patients in cardiorespiratory arrest or experiencing life-threatening illness in the prehospital care environment in line with current practice.

Upcoming Immediate Life Support courses

We can also run this course at your premises. If you have 4-6 staff members interested in this qualification, please email training@promed999.co.uk or call 03333 445442 to discuss.

These courses are provided by our training partner, STC Training Solutions, a Qualsafe Awards Registered Centre No. 0907391.

Immediate Life Support qualfication details

This qualification contains 1 mandatory unit with a Total Qualification Time (TQT) of 10 hours. This is made up of 7 Guided Learning Hours (GLH); the time your are being taught and assessed under the immediate guidance of a trainer/assessor. The remaining 3 hours are what you will reasonably spend preparing & studying and towards assessment, directed (but not supervised) by a trainer/assessor.

The credit value for this qualification is 1 credit at level 4.

Topics covered

We start looking at scene management, moving on to the methods & procedures needed to assess & manage an incident. You’ll then learn to manage a patient with life-threatening or non-life-threatening illnesses & injuries. This includes using the National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS2) system. You’ll also look at post-incident procedures.

Airway management is a core component of the course. You’ll start with simple manual maneouvres, escalate through oropharyngeal (OP) & nasopharyngeal (NP) airways and include supraglottic airway (SGA) devices. Whilst endotrachael (ET) intubation is a registered healthcare professional (HCP) skill, we’ll touch on it so you’re able to assist in the procedure.

The Immediate Life Support (ILS) algorithm & procedures form the majority of the day. You’ll look at return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), third trimester pregnancies, neck stomas & patient handovers.

End of life care is taught as part of this course.

Our course includes mechanical ventilators & manual defibrillation as standard.

We have designed our course to meet not only the Qualsafe Award specification, but also the latest RC(UK) guidelines.

Assessment

You must complete all assessments & skills tests in the unit successfully within the registration period to achieve the qualification. The maximum period to achieve this qualification, including any referrals, is 4 weeks

Assessment of performance is carried out on a 1:1 basis.

2 x practical assessments:

• Immediate Life Support (ILS) (adult)
• Patient assessment and management

1 x skills test:

• Airway management

1 x theory assessment:

• Workbook 1 (8 questions)

Pre-requisites

• Have successfully completed the QA Level 4 Certificate in First Response Emergency Care (RQF) or a QA recognised equivalent qualification (Associate Ambulance Practitioner, IHCD Ambulance Aid, or be a registered healthcare professional)
• Be at least 18 years old on the first day of the training

QA Level 4 Award in Immediate Life Support (RQF) certificate

You’ll receive your Qualsafe Awards Level 4 Award in Immediate Life Support (RQF) e-certificate soon after your results have been submitted. We’ll also post a printed certificate within a few weeks of the course ending.

We’ll issue you with an interim ecertificate confirming what you have been assessed on to cover the time from our Internal Quality Assurer (IQA) confirming your have met the requirement for the award until your certificate is issued. You can show this to employers pending the certificate from the awarding body.

Recommended reading

You’ll receive Immediate Life Support Fourth Edition (ISBN 9781903812310) to keep on the first day of the course. This will support you in your career to put your knowledge into practice.

We suggest that you become familiar with the 2015 Resuscitation Guidelines.

Requalification

Your QA Level 4 Award in Immediate Life Support (RQF) certificate is valid for 1 year. This is dated when you achieve the final unit.

You need to retake the qualification before the certificate expiry date to remain qualified.