If your primary survey of the patient indicates that he or she is unconscious and unresponsive but breathing normally the patient should be put in the Recovery Position and monitored until the ambulance arrives.

If the patient has family in attendance who inform you that he or she does this frequently and always recovers quite quickly, you may refrain from calling for an ambulance unless this proves not to be the case on this occasion.

Before you put them into the recovery position you need to ensure that they have no other injuries that may be compounded when rolling them over. This is called the Secondary Survey.

This head-to-toe is an examination where you should look for abnormalities or other injuries. Whilst important do not spend a lot of time on this, just feel down their bodies, arms and legs for anything that is obvious.

Before rolling the casualty over remove glasses where necessary and if they have a large sharp ring on the hand to be placed on their cheek, spin the ring around. Also remove bulky or sharp objects from the patients pockets.

You are now ready to put them in the recovery position.

1. Take the arm nearest to you and place it at about 90 degrees to the patients body with the elbow slightly bent.

2. Lift the hand farthest away from you and place the back of the hand against the patients cheek at your side, and hold it there.

3. Place your other hand to the back of the knee of the farthest leg and raise so that the leg is now bent.

4. Apply pressure to the farthest side of the raised knee and roll the patient towards you. Gently tilt the chin back to open the airway and reconfirm that the patient is still breathing.

Keep monitoring his breathing until the ambulance arrives.

Recovery Position