Vital Signs are essential not only for establishing how ill a casualty is, but for monitoring the casualty’s condition and assessing the effectiveness of treatment.

If trained to do so, the main observations that should be noted down, where possible are:

Skin appearance
Level of consciousness
Temperature
Pulse rate
Respiration rate

Taking vital sign observations is extremely important to emergency services who take over control of the incident. They provide a guide to the patient’s condition and response to treatment given.

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