An app for NMC revalidation reflections: what it can and cannot do

What revalidation asks for, which part of it an app can help with, and which parts it cannot.

What revalidation asks for

Every three years, to renew your registration, you need:

450 practice hours, or 900 if you are registered as both a nurse and a midwife.
35 hours of CPD relevant to your scope of practice, of which at least 20 must have included participatory learning.
Five pieces of practice-related feedback.
Five written reflective accounts.
A reflective discussion with another registered nurse, midwife or nursing associate.
Health and character, a professional indemnity arrangement, and confirmation.

The hours, the feedback and the accounts all cover the three year period since your registration was last renewed or you joined the register.

Which part an app can help with

One: the five written reflective accounts. That is the part that stalls people, because it means writing rather than collecting.

The rest is record keeping and appointments. No app can give you practice hours, and ReflectReady is not an NMC product and has not been endorsed by the NMC.

Why speaking is easier than writing

Most practitioners can talk about a difficult shift for five minutes without effort, and then stare at a blank form for an hour. Speech comes out in the order things happened. A form wants them sorted under headings.

ReflectReady closes that gap. You speak, and your own sentences are sorted under the headings of the NMC reflective account: what the activity, feedback or experience was, what you learnt, how you changed your practice, and how it relates to the Code.

It sorts your words, it does not write them

The reflection has to be yours. The NMC asks you to reflect on your own practice, and a generated account is not that, quite apart from being obvious to read.

So the app does one job: it moves your sentences under the right headings and tidies the false starts. A word-for-word score shows you how much of the text is still literally yours, and the Your Words page sets out exactly where your words go.

Keeping patients and colleagues out of it

The NMC tells you not to record any information which may identify another person. Speaking makes this easier to get wrong, because names slip out. ReflectReady takes out some kinds of identifier automatically, on your device before anything is sent, but those checks can miss things, so read it back and edit it before you keep it.

What it does not do

It does not log your practice hours or your 35 CPD hours.
It does not fill in or submit the NMC’s own forms. You copy your account into your form or portfolio.
It does not arrange or record your reflective discussion or your confirmation.
It is not an NMC product and is not endorsed by the NMC.

How to do the five in an evening

List five things: a course, a piece of feedback, an event that stayed with you, a change you made, something that went wrong.
Take one at a time and speak for two or three minutes about what happened and what you learnt.
Read it back, edit anything that is not how you would put it, and take out identifying detail.
Say which Code theme it relates to, and why. That single line is what the form asks for and what people skip.
Keep it, then copy it into your NMC form when all five are done.

The free trial covers one full reflection in your own words, without a template, so you can see how the speaking and tidying works before paying for anything.

Sources: NMC: revalidation requirements, NMC: written reflective accounts.