Basic life support (BLS) is a specific level of prehospital medical care provided by trained responders, including emergency medical technicians, in the absence of advanced medical care.

Basic Life Support consists of a number of life-saving techniques which are focused on the "ABC"s of prehospital emergency care:

• Airway: the protection and maintenance of a patent airway including the use of airway adjuncts such as an oral or nasal airway
• Breathing: the actual flow of air through respiration, natural or artificial respiration, often assisted by emergency oxygen
• Circulation: the movement of blood through the beating of the heart or the emergency measure of CPR

BLS may also include considerations of patient transport such as the protection of the cervical spine and avoiding additional injuries through splinting and immobilization.

BLS generally does not include the use of drugs or invasive skills, and can be contrasted with the provision of Advanced_cardiac_life_support (ACLS).

CPR provided in the field buys time for higher medical responders to arrive and provide ACLS. For this reason it is essential that any person starting CPR also obtain ACLS support by calling for help via radio using agency policies and procedures and/or using an appropriate emergency telephone number.

An important advance in providing BLS is the availability of the automated external defibrillator or AED, which can be used to deliver defibrillation. This improves survival outcomes in cardiac arrest cases, sometimes dramatically.

In other countries

The term BLS is also used in some non-English speaking countries (e.g. in Italy) for the education of first responders.

In Belgium, the education is called Aide médicale urgente ("emergency medical assistance"), and in France CFAPSE (certificat de formation aux activités des premiers secours en équipe, "education certificate for the team first responder activity"). These educations do not include the use of drugs or of invasive technics, but include the management of various traumas and the casualty lifting and movement.

See also

• emergency medical technician
• artificial respiration
• CPR

External links

• Single-Rescuer Adult Basic Life Support — An Advisory Statement From the Basic Life Support Working Group of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation, Circulation #95, pp 2174–2179, ed. American Heart Association, 1997
• Nozioni primo soccorso BLS (Italian), PDF document (12p, 912 Kb)