ERC
Immediate Life Support (ILS)
Healthcare professionals and hospital rapid-response (blue) teams.
Immediate Life Support (ILS) trains health professionals to manage a critically ill patient and a cardiac arrest in the first, decisive minutes, until the resuscitation team takes over.
No session is scheduled for this programme right now.
The programme
This is exactly the knowledge needed by the healthcare staff who make up the rapid-response (blue) teams of hospitals and health facilities. When a patient deteriorates, the first to reach them is rarely the full resuscitation team. It is the department's own staff, who must know what to do immediately and correctly.
It is a one-day, multidisciplinary programme, built around the ABCDE approach to the deteriorating patient. Compared with BLS, it goes further into diagnostic skills: airway management, recognition of heart rhythm on the ECG and rapid, safe defibrillation, with an AED or a manual defibrillator. It follows the logic of Advanced Life Support, focusing however on the core knowledge and skills that every health professional needs in practice.
In this way, ILS acts as the frontline resuscitation programme for healthcare staff: the bridge between basic life support and specialist care.
The certifying body
European Resuscitation Council
The European Resuscitation Council (ERC) is the European body that sets the guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It was founded in 1988 as a non-profit organisation, with the mission of "preserving human life by making high-quality resuscitation available to all". Its guidelines, updated every five years, are a point of reference across Europe. Through a network of national councils, the ERC trains around two million people a year in 56 countries. Programmes that follow its standard lead to an internationally recognised certification.
Visit the body’s websiteFrequently asked questions
Do I need any prior knowledge?
For most programmes, no — they start from zero. Where a prerequisite exists, the programme itself says so: the Basic Instructor Course, for example, requires an active ERC BLS or PBLS certification.
The programme I want has no scheduled session. What do I do?
Leave your email on the expression of interest page and pick the programmes you care about. As soon as a matching session opens, you will be the first to know.
Do you train schools and groups?
Yes. We offer free training to schools of every level and to the community, and through the Double Score programme a school can earn a free defibrillator. For a training at your own venue, write to us at info@lifesupporthub.edu.gr.