5 Nursing Reflection Examples Using Gibbs, Rolfe and Driscoll Models

Last updated August 2026

Resources / Nursing reflection examples

Reflective writing is one of the hardest parts of a healthcare placement to start, and one of the most useful once you do. This guide explains what reflective practice is, why it matters on placement, and how the three models most UK programmes accept — the Gibbs Reflective Cycle, Rolfe's framework and Driscoll's model — actually work in practice. You will find five complete worked nursing reflection examples, the mistakes that cost marks, and clear guidance on confidentiality.

It is written for student nurses across all four fields, and equally for midwifery students, paramedic science, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, radiography and other allied health students, who are assessed against very similar reflective standards. Every scenario below is fictional and composite. No real patient, colleague, ward or placement provider is described.

What is reflective practice?

Reflective practice is the deliberate habit of looking back at something that happened in your practice, examining it honestly, and drawing out learning you can apply next time. It is not a diary entry and it is not a clinical incident report. A diary records events; a reflection asks why they happened, what part you played, and what you will do differently.

In the UK it sits at the heart of professional regulation. The NMC Code expects registered nurses and midwives to keep their knowledge and skills up to date and to take part in appraisal and reflection, and NMC revalidation requires five written reflective accounts every three years. The HCPC expects the same reflective standard from allied health professionals. Universities build reflection into practice assessment documents precisely because it is the habit you will be expected to carry into registration.

A reflective model simply gives that thinking a structure so you do not stall after describing what happened — which is where most unstructured reflections stop.

Why reflection matters in healthcare placements

• It converts experience into evidence. A shift you cannot describe is a shift you cannot demonstrate. A written reflection becomes proficiency evidence, supervision discussion material and interview content.
• It closes the theory–practice gap. Linking what you saw to guidance, policy or evidence is what turns an anecdote into learning.
• It supports patient safety. Reflecting on near misses and uncomfortable moments is how professionals learn to speak up earlier next time.
• It protects your wellbeing. Naming what a difficult shift felt like, and what you would change, is far healthier than carrying it unexamined.
• It is assessed. Reflective accounts feature in practice assessment documents, portfolios and written assignments across almost every UK healthcare programme.

Gibbs Reflective Cycle overview

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle (1988) is the model most widely taught on UK nursing programmes. It has six stages, and the value lies in not skipping any of them:

• Description — what happened, factually and anonymously.
• Feelings — what you were thinking and feeling at the time and afterwards.
• Evaluation — what was good and what was less good about the experience.
• Analysis — what sense you can make of it, supported by evidence or guidance.
• Conclusion — what else you could have done.
• Action plan — what you will do if it happens again.

Use Gibbs when an event mattered enough to be worth unpicking in depth, including how it felt.

Example 1 — Gibbs: your first supervised clinical skill

Description. During my second week on an adult medical ward I performed my first supervised venepuncture. The patient, an adult in their seventies admitted with breathlessness, had consented to a student taking the sample with my practice supervisor present throughout.

Feelings. I was anxious beforehand, mainly about causing unnecessary discomfort and about being watched. Once my supervisor talked me through the steps I felt steadier. Afterwards I felt relieved, then slightly embarrassed that my preparation had been so slow.

Evaluation. The sample was obtained at the first attempt and the patient reported no undue discomfort. Less well: I had not checked the request form carefully, so I had to leave the bedside to fetch an additional bottle, which extended the procedure and interrupted the patient's rest.

Analysis. My technique held up because I had rehearsed it repeatedly in the skills laboratory, which suggests deliberate practice transferred well. The gap was in the preparation around the skill rather than the skill itself. Aseptic and safety-critical procedures depend on the whole sequence — checking the request, assembling equipment, positioning, labelling at the bedside — and I had mentally rehearsed only the middle of that sequence. Leaving a patient mid-procedure also risks sample labelling errors, which is a recognised source of avoidable harm.

Conclusion. Competence in a clinical skill includes everything that surrounds the procedure, not only the technical part. I could have read the request form fully and laid out all equipment before approaching the patient.

Action plan. Before my next venepuncture I will read the request form in full, assemble every bottle and item required before approaching the patient, and label at the bedside. I have asked my practice supervisor to observe and give feedback on my preparation as well as my technique, and I have added this to my practice assessment document as an ongoing objective.

Example 2 — Gibbs: a difficult team communication moment

Description. On a late shift I was asked to escort a patient to another department at the same time as I had committed to helping a colleague with personal care. I agreed to both, was late for the escort, and the coordinating nurse had to rearrange the transfer.

Feelings. I felt useful when I said yes to both, then panicked, then ashamed when I realised I had let two people down. I noticed I did not want to admit I had over-committed.

Evaluation. What went well is that I told the coordinating nurse as soon as I realised, so the transfer was rearranged rather than missed. What went badly is that the situation was entirely avoidable and created extra work for a busy team.

Analysis. As a student I wanted to be seen as helpful and capable, and saying no felt like admitting a limit. In reality, accepting work you cannot deliver is a safety issue: it creates unowned tasks. The NMC Code is explicit that practitioners should work within the limits of their competence and capacity and communicate clearly with colleagues. Escalating early was the right instinct; the error was earlier, at the point of agreeing.

Conclusion. I could have checked my existing commitments before agreeing, or agreed with a clear condition — for example, that I could escort the patient after personal care was complete.

Action plan. I will keep a short written list of my agreed tasks each shift and check it before accepting anything new. When I cannot take something on I will say so immediately and offer a realistic alternative time. I discussed this with my practice supervisor at our mid-point meeting.

Rolfe reflective model overview

Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper's framework (2001) reduces reflection to three questions: What?, So what? and Now what? Each question can be expanded with prompts, but the simplicity is the point — it is fast enough to write in the twenty minutes after a shift while the detail is still fresh. Use Rolfe when time is short or the event is contained.

Example 3 — Rolfe: a difficult conversation with a relative

What? A relative approached me in the corridor and asked for an update on their family member. I did not know whether consent to share information with that person was recorded, so I said I would find the nurse in charge. The relative became visibly frustrated at being asked to wait again.

So what? My decision on confidentiality was correct — sharing information without confirming consent would have breached the Code and information governance policy. But I delivered it poorly. I focused entirely on protecting the information and not at all on acknowledging that this person was frightened for someone they love, so a correct action felt obstructive to them. It taught me that being right about a rule and being helpful to a person are two different skills, and patients and families experience both.

Now what? I will keep escalating information requests rather than guessing, but I will lead with empathy: naming that waiting for news is difficult, saying clearly who I am going to find, and giving a realistic timescale. I have added communication in emotionally charged situations as an objective for my next practice supervisor meeting, and I asked to observe how experienced staff open these conversations.

Example 4 — Rolfe: a shift that overwhelmed me

What? On a busy early shift I was allocated more patients than usual for a student. I did not say I was struggling until the end of the shift, when I became tearful in the staff room.

So what? Nothing unsafe happened, but only because a healthcare support worker quietly picked up tasks I had not managed. I had assumed that asking for help would look like failure, when in fact working beyond safe capacity without flagging it is the genuine risk. I also noticed that I had not eaten or taken a break, which made everything feel less manageable than it was.

Now what? I will agree my patient allocation with my supervisor at the start of each shift and say clearly at the mid-point if it is not workable. I will take my break. If I feel this way again I will speak to my personal tutor or the university wellbeing service rather than waiting until the end of a placement week.

Driscoll reflective model overview

Driscoll's model (1994, revised 2007) also uses What?, So what? and Now what?, but with a stronger emphasis on the consequences of your actions and on committing to future practice. It is often used to structure supervision discussions, because the questions are easy to ask aloud. Use Driscoll when the point of the reflection is change.

Example 5 — Driscoll: a medication near miss

What? While observing a medication round I noticed that the dose written on the prescription chart did not match the dose printed on the dispensed packaging. I raised it with the registered nurse before anything was administered, and the discrepancy was checked and corrected.

So what? Speaking up was uncomfortable. I assumed I had misread it and that questioning a registered nurse as a first-year student would seem presumptuous, so I hesitated for several seconds before saying anything. The nurse thanked me directly and explained how the error had arisen, which reinforced that checking is expected rather than intrusive. The effect of raising it was that no patient received an incorrect dose. The effect had I stayed silent could have been significant harm. Medicines administration errors remain one of the most common patient safety incidents reported in UK healthcare, and they are usually intercepted by someone willing to pause.

Now what? I will continue to check charts against labels independently even when I am only observing, and I will phrase concerns as a question — "can I just check this dose with you?" — rather than staying quiet. I have asked to read my placement provider's incident reporting procedure so I understand what happens after a near miss is raised, and I will discuss escalation and speaking up at my next supervision meeting.

Common reflection mistakes

• Describing a whole shift. Pick one specific event. Breadth kills depth, and markers reward depth.
• Stopping at description. If more than a third of your word count is "what happened", the analysis is missing.
• Only writing about successes. A reflection with no honest difficulty in it rarely shows learning. Being open about what did not go well is a professional strength, not an admission of incompetence.
• Blaming others. Reflection examines your part in an event. Note system pressures, but keep the focus on your own practice.
• No evidence. For assessed work, link your analysis to the Code, national guidance, local policy or published literature.
• Vague action plans. "Communicate better" is not an action. "Agree my allocation with my supervisor at the start of every shift" is.
• Leaving it too long. Detail fades within days. Capture rough notes on the day and write the full reflection within the week.
• Including identifiable detail. The most serious mistake, and the easiest to avoid.

Tips for maintaining patient confidentiality

Confidentiality applies to student work exactly as it applies to registered practice. Before you save or submit anything, remove:

• Names and initials of patients, relatives and colleagues.
• NHS numbers, hospital numbers, dates of birth and addresses.
• Exact dates of care — write "during my second week" rather than a calendar date.
• Ward names, bay numbers, team names and, in assessed work, often the trust or placement provider.
• Rare diagnoses, unusual presentations or any combination of details that could identify someone in a small community.
• Photographs, screenshots of records, and anything copied from a clinical system.

Write about roles rather than people — "the registered nurse", "a patient in their seventies" — and never store reflections containing clinical identifiers on personal devices, in personal email or in cloud folders shared with others. Follow your university's reflective writing policy and your placement provider's information governance rules; where they differ, apply the stricter one. Our professional use guidance sets out the full expectations we ask Placement Pal users to work to.

How Placement Pal helps organise reflections and placement evidence

Most students do not struggle to reflect. They struggle to capture the event before the detail fades, and to find their reflections again months later when a portfolio or interview needs them. Placement Pal is built for exactly that gap:

• Voice capture after a shift. Talk through what happened on the way home and it becomes structured text you can edit.
• Guided models. The reflection tools walk you stage by stage through Gibbs, Rolfe or Driscoll with prompts for each section, so you never stall after the description.
• An anonymity check before saving. The app flags names, numbers and other identifiable detail and offers a de-identified rewrite.
• NMC Code theme tagging. Tag each reflection against the four themes of the Code so you can show breadth of evidence.
• Hours, wins and supervision in one place. Practice hours, achievements and mentor meetings sit alongside your reflections.
• PDF export. Produce a clean document for supervision, assessment or an interview folder.

The core reflection tools are free. Placement Pal Plus adds the professional portfolio builder, advanced competency tracking, the placement journey timeline and AI reflection coaching that suggests how to deepen a draft. AI supports your writing process; the experience, judgement and learning remain yours, and you should always check your university's position on AI use in assessed work.

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