Life support courses for all

Many courses teaching advanced life support skills are now available in this country. These 'provider' courses include those dealing with cardiac, trauma and paediatric resuscitation. The numbers of applicants for all these courses far exceed the places available. There is further demand for places from those who currently hold advanced life support provider certificates and who require re-evaluation to maintain their certification. For many, particularly non-medical staff, obtaining funding or study leave to attend such a course may also be a problem. All these factors lead to delays in providing the training in advanced life support skills that is clearly needed. We here report on the development and success of local 1-day resuscitation courses as a means of introducing all staff who may be expected to cope with an emergency situation to the current principles of resuscitation. We do not suggest that such abbreviated courses are in any way a substitute for the full advanced life support course, but that they can provide tuition that may otherwise be unavailable.