Learning Log requirements
Trainees must write 36 Clinical Case Reviews each training year (36 in ST1, 36 in ST2 and 36 in ST3). This is three Clinical Case Reviews per month on average (pro rata for those who are Less Than Full Time (LTFT)). Clinical Case Reviews must be about real patients that you have personally seen.
You are also required to arrange and document a Placement-Planning meeting at the start of each new post.
At least 1 Learning Event Analysis should be complete in each Training Year (ST1, ST2 and ST3).
The requirements for CEPS, Quality Improvement Activity, and Prescribing are covered on the specific pages for these logs.
You are expected to have more than one log entry which addresses each capability in each six-month review period. You will therefore need to complete a breadth of learning log entries in addition to Clinical Case Reviews, which reflect on your experiences in such a way that they are appropriately linked to capabilities such as organisation, management and leadership, ethics, and fitness to practice. Learning logs looking at leadership, quality improvement and prescribing activities, for example, will be very important in achieving these links.
For most log entries you will suggest linkage to the relevant Clinical Experience Groups and capabilities, providing justification of the capabilities chosen in certain logs. The GMC requires you to demonstrate reflective practice, which is core to your professionalism and learning and this will be done through your learning logs.
Types of Learning Log
Templates and examples of each Learning log type can be found here:
Trainees must write 36 Clinical Case Reviews each Training year (36 in ST1, 36 in ST2 and 36 in ST3). This is 3 Clinical Case Reviews per month on average (pro rata for those who are Less Than Full Time (LTFT)). Clinical Case Reviews must be about real patients that you have personally seen, and should be about a clinical learning experience. Other logs that don’t demonstrated clinical learning, or are not about patients that you have personally seen, should be recorded in the other learning log formats available, such as Supporting Documentation.
CCRs should account for the majority of your learning logs and provide the best opportunities for linkage to the Capabilities and Clinical Experience Groups. The clinical learning from acute, chronic, emergency or unscheduled care experiences is recorded here. There is now the option within the Clinical Case Review to document learning in a variety of settings (both in and out of standard GP hours) in addition to the type of consultation. You are expected, after a brief description of the case, to reflect on what you need to maintain, improve, or stop doing. Before considering this, it is recommended that you reflect on what went well and why, so that you can maintain these behaviours. This reflection should include actions required in response to your emotional needs as well as clinical and educational actions i.e., ‘how did it make you feel?’
The supervisor is encouraged to comment on each capability linked. Whenever the supervisor disagrees with a suggested Capability or Clinical Experience Group link their explanation should appear in the comments section.
When new learning or experiences present themselves, these should be documented in your log. It is particularly important to document learning in Unscheduled Urgent Care/ OOH care within your Clinical Case Reviews, as this will provide evidence of your understanding of working in this setting. It is not mandatory that you complete a Clinical Case Review for each Unscheduled / OOH care session undertaken but documentation of any attendance in this setting should be entered in the ‘supporting documentation’ section of the log.
See the CEPS page for more details.
Trainees must arrange and document a Placement Planning Meeting at the start of each new post. This allows for a record of placement planning meetings which are now mandatory. It links to Working with colleagues and in teams, Fitness to practice, and Organisation, management, and learning.
A placement planning meeting log entry should be completed by the trainee after a meeting has taken place with the named Clinical Supervisor (and where relevant the Educational Supervisor) at the beginning of each placement. During the meeting with the Supervisor, educational objectives for the following attachment should be set in addition to a discussion to identify the specific opportunities that are relevant to primary care within the placement.
Please see the link to the RCGP Super Condensed Curriculum which can be further expanded to help guide discussions.
Please see the QIA page for full guidance on this assessment.
The Quality Improvement Project (QIP) is a separate assessment. View our QIP page for full guidance.
Please see the Prescribing Assessment page for full guidance and details.
The analysis of events which do not reach the GMC threshold for harm but present an opportunity for learning are referred to as Learning Events Analysis and need to be documented in each training year (ST1/2/3) on this form. This might include events which may not have a serious outcome but highlight issues which could have been handled with greater clinical effectiveness and from which lessons can be learnt.
An entry under Learning Event Analysis would normally involve sharing information within the team and demonstrating learning. Areas for further learning and development should be reflected in your Personal Development Plan (PDP).
Significant events must be reflected on, and the format allows clarification of which type of event this refers to through having a drop-down box.
Learning about leadership skills is an important area of GP training. The non-clinical work a GP is required to do is complex within an increasingly diverse clinical workforce. This log entry enables appropriate documentation of experiences and reflection. You are encouraged to record activities such as chairing a meeting, giving a presentation, or a ‘Fresh Pair of Eyes’ exercise. The NHS Leadership Academy suggests leadership in the health and care services is about delivering high quality services to patients by: demonstrating personal qualities, working with others, managing services, improving services, setting direction, creating the vision, and delivering the strategy. ‘Delivering the service’ is at the core of this leadership model.
The Academic Activity log is designed to be used by trainees in an academic post.
This reflective log entry enables you to reflect on the following feedback: colleagues (MSF), patients (PSQ) and leadership (leadership MSF), in addition to reflections on the ESR, CSR, educator notes, examination results for example.
This area allows you to record and reflect on relevant pieces of evidence that you may have highlighted from your clinical reviews or PDP. It also allows you to provide evidence and share brief summative reflections of your CPD evidence of reading / reflections on learning events. By separating this from the reflections on clinical work we are supporting a degree of separation between WPBA and the appraisal functions of the GP trainee Portfolio.
Basic life support, safeguarding certification, unscheduled / out of hours attendance should be appropriately recorded here. Other learning such as eLearning, tutorials, courses/certificates, lectures and reading can appropriately be recorded in the CPD area. Trainees may want to note that entries which are purely documentation of reading or of doing an online course are not Workplace Based Learning Activities.
All trainees need to get experience in UUC/ OOH and evidence of your attendance at these sessions needs to be included in your supporting documentation section.
Some areas of the UK expect the number of hours/sessions undertaken in the UUC / OOH setting to be documented as part of your GP trainee contract. In this case a summary table should be completed and uploaded as a separate ‘supporting documentation’ entry before your final ARCP.
Clinical experience groups
Clinical Experience Groups map to the RCGP curriculum. Instead of linking individual learning logs to individual sub headings of the curriculum, these curriculum headings have been grouped into Clinical Experience Groups. Up to two Clinical Experience Groups can be linked to each learning log.
Your supervisor is encouraged to review the links and amend/remove any inappropriate links.
Do not be put off from adding evidence into your learning log if none of the clinical experience groups apply as your entries can still be linked to the RCGP capabilities providing you have reflected on these within your entry.
The clinical experience groups are below:
- Infants, children, and young people (under the age of 19 years)
- Gender, reproductive and sexual health (including women’s, men’s, LGBTQ, gynae and breast)
- People with long-term conditions including cancer, multi-morbidity, and disability
- Older adults including frailty and/or people at end of life
- Mental health (including addiction, alcohol, and substance misuse)
- Urgent and unscheduled care
- People with health disadvantage and vulnerabilities (including veterans, mental capacity difficulties, safeguarding and those with communication difficulties/disability)
- Population Health and health promotion (including people with non-acute and/or non-chronic health problems)
- Clinical problems not linked to a specific clinical experience group
Trainees are reminded to regularly review the topic guides in the curriculum for further understanding of these areas.
Capability linkage
The majority of the reflective learning log entries require you to suggest links to the 13 GP Capabilities (the basis of ‘Being a General Practitioner’). Most of which also require justification, describing how your actions and approach link to the capability suggested. This should help focus your thinking when writing entries and helps alignment with the Educational Supervisors Review, where you are required to demonstrate how you are meeting the Capabilities.
The format of the learning logs is intended to enable you to summarise the case. Comment on what you have done or learnt and possibly identifying some learning needs. Without necessarily linking it to a capability. Your supervisor will confirm each of your suggested links. They will add further comments about the capabilities chosen. The text inputted when justifying the capabilities chosen, will be auto-populated and available to you as part of your Educational Supervisors Review. You and your supervisor should be aware that the links made to Clinical Experience Groups is to enable you to demonstrate evidence. In each of the Capabilities across the range of Clinical Experience Groups with whom GPs work.
It is expected that by the end of training there should be sufficient coverage of the Clinical Experience Groups to demonstrate your ability to work as a General Practitioner in the UK in a range of settings. The coverage of the Clinical Experience Groups in each Capability should be reviewed at your Placement Planning Meeting and periodic Educational Supervisor meetings. You therefore need to be aware at each stage of training whether you are accumulating sufficient evidence. Minimum expected numbers per individual Clinical Experience Group or Capability have deliberately not been set and should not be set locally as the demonstration of Capability depends on your educational needs. The quality of evidence, and the reflections on learning rather than on numbers alone.
Evidence in the 13 capability areas
Your Clinical or Educational Supervisor can only validate log entries against the Capabilities if they are of sufficient quality.
Log entries should be reflective, demonstrating personal insight into how you are performing and learning from your everyday experiences. A good, reflective log entry will show:
- evidence of critical thinking and analysis, describing your own thought processes
- self-awareness, demonstrating openness and honesty about performance along with some consideration of your own feelings
- evidence of learning, appropriately describing what needs to be learned, why and how.
You won’t be expected to produce perfect log entries from day one, but your Educational Supervisor will expect to see improvement in the quality of your Learning Log entries and insight as you progress.
- Hallmarks of good practice in recording information in the Trainee ePortfolio (PDF file, 138 KB)
- Workplace Based Assessment (WPBA) capability framework
Reflection and evaluation
Two documents have been produced jointly by the:
- Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC),
- Conference of Postgraduate Medical Deans (COPMeD),
- General Medical Council (GMC)
- Medical Schools Council (MSC).
- The reflective practitioner guidance (external PDF)
- Summary version of the reflective practitioner guidance (external PDF)
Reflection is an important part of professional practice. By reflecting, doctors assess how well they are performing, as well as identifying their learning needs and enabling improvements to be made to their practice.
The guidance was developed following requests for clearer information on what is meant by reflection, and how those in training and engaging in revalidation should reflect as part of their practice. It has been developed with input across the UK and is intended for use across the UK.
The guidance outlines the importance of reflection for personal development and learning. It highlights how reflection can help doctors and medical students to maintain and improve their professional practice and drive improvements in patient safety.
It emphasises ten key elements of being a reflective practitioner, including:
- how reflection is personal; that there is no one way to reflect;
- reflective notes don’t need to capture the full details of an experience, but should focus on learning outcomes and future plans.
This work, which is a joint effort by all four organisations to provide clearer advice in this area, is part of a wider commitment to drive an open and honest learning culture. We will explore what other guidance or information could be developed to provide more practical support.
The documents are available on the COPMeD website, along with the Academy and COPMeD Reflective Practice Toolkit.
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