Your ePortfolio is much more than somewhere to collect assessments and tick off requirements – used well, it should help you make sense of your learning and see how you are developing throughout training. We know it can sometimes feel like there is a lot to keep on top of, particularly when you are moving between placements, working with different supervisors and preparing for reviews. This page brings together the practical guidance we think is most useful, from setting up your portfolio correctly and understanding workplace-based assessments, through to reflection, supervision, ESRs and ARCP. We have also included some advice on using AI appropriately to support your thinking, rather than replacing it. You do not need to read everything at once – use the sections below to find what you need, when you need it.
Your portfolio through training
Your ePortfolio should help you see how your learning, feedback and experience fit together across training. The guide below is designed as a practical companion rather than another list of rules: use it to check that your portfolio is set up correctly, understand the main workplace-based assessments, make reflection more useful, prepare for reviews and know where to go when something does not look right.
Getting your portfolio set up correctly
At the beginning of every placement, it is worth spending a few minutes checking that the information in your portfolio is correct. Small errors with dates, review periods or supervisors can become much more awkward when assessments and reviews are due.
Check your training post
Make sure the current placement, specialty and dates match your actual rotation.
Check your review period
Your review period should reflect the period being considered at your next supervision review.
Check your Educational Supervisor
Confirm that the correct Educational Supervisor is linked before assessments and reports are due.
Do it in the right order
Your placement information is available from the NHS England trainee self-service portal in TIS. When you need to set up or amend your FourteenFish record, work through the portfolio in this order:
- Training programmeSet this first. Once it is correct, you should not usually need to amend it.
- Stage of trainingMake sure your current ST stage is correct before creating the review period.
- Review period & Educational SupervisorCreate the correct review period and make sure the correct Educational Supervisor is linked.
Watch the GP School video walkthrough of the complete data-entry process.
From August 2025, your named Educational Supervisor will normally stay with you throughout ST1 and ST2, regardless of where those placements are based. In ST3, the ES role transfers to the named GP trainer at your final GP placement. Your Clinical Supervisor will change with each post.
Building your evidence
Workplace Based Assessment (WPBA) is not simply about collecting a fixed number of forms. The different tools are designed to give you feedback on different parts of your day-to-day work and, taken together, build a picture of your progress across training.
Consultation Observation Tool
COTs are used in primary care and assess a real consultation, observed directly or through a recording. In West Mid, ST1 and ST2 trainees should complete two COTs in each six-month GP placement. In ST3, seven COTs are required across the 12-month GP year. The purpose is structured feedback on consultation skills and the holistic judgements needed in general practice.
RCGP guidanceMini Clinical Evaluation Exercise
MiniCEX is used in non-primary-care settings. A supervisor observes a real clinical interaction and gives structured feedback on your clinical skills, attitudes and behaviours. In West Mid, ST1 and ST2 trainees should complete two MiniCEXs in each six-month hospital placement. MiniCEX is not required in ST3, which is based in primary care.
RCGP guidanceCase-based Discussion
A CbD is a structured discussion about a case you have already managed. The focus is your clinical reasoning: why you made particular decisions, what alternatives you considered, how you handled uncertainty and what you learnt. In West Mid, ST1 and ST2 trainees should complete two CbDs in each six-month placement, whether the post is in GP or hospital.
RCGP guidanceCare Assessment Tool
CATs are used in GP placements to review real general-practice work and professional judgement. In ST1 and ST2 GP placements, trainees complete CbDs as their case-based assessments. In ST3 GP placements, CATs replace CbDs. Five CATs are required across the 12-month ST3 GP year. CATs can use different formats, including case review, and are designed to look more broadly at your work in general practice.
RCGP guidanceClinical Examination and Procedural Skills
CEPS are observed clinical examinations and procedures and should be gathered throughout training, not left until ST3. By CCT you need evidence for all five mandatory intimate examinations plus a broad range of other CEPS relevant to general practice. The RCGP does not prescribe a fixed number of additional CEPS; as a practical West Mid aim, try to build evidence across at least three different additional examination or procedural areas rather than repeatedly recording the same skill.
RCGP guidanceDeveloping your practice
These sit alongside the observed and case-based assessments but serve a different purpose: they support planned development, improvement and feedback across your training.
Personal Development Plan
Your PDP records learning needs that matter for your next stage of training and the actions you plan to take. Good PDP objectives should come from real feedback, assessments or anticipated learning opportunities rather than being generic goals added simply to satisfy the portfolio. They should be realistic, specific enough to revisit and useful to discuss at your next review.
RCGP guidanceQuality Improvement Activity
QIA is the broader quality-improvement requirement. It asks you to evaluate the quality of your work, consider where change may be helpful and reflect on your involvement in improvement. Quality improvement involvement is required in every training year; a QIP can fulfil the QIA requirement in the year in which it is completed.
RCGP guidanceQuality Improvement Project
A QIP is a more structured quality-improvement project and should be completed in a primary-care placement in ST1 or ST2. The emphasis is on understanding a problem, introducing or testing change and considering its impact, rather than simply describing an audit.
RCGP guidanceMulti-Source Feedback
MSF gathers feedback from colleagues who have worked with you and can comment on how you function within the wider team. One MSF is required in each training year. In ST3 there is also a separate Leadership MSF, completed after the leadership activity.
RCGP guidancePatient Satisfaction Questionnaire
The PSQ gathers feedback directly from patients about their experience of consulting with you, particularly communication, empathy and the doctor-patient relationship. It is completed once in ST3 rather than annually, and the results should be discussed with your supervisor.
RCGP guidanceRequirements can change. Use the current RCGP tracker rather than an old screenshot or table.
Reflection that actually helps you learn
A useful reflection does more than describe what happened. It helps you understand why an experience mattered, what it tells you about your practice and what you might do differently next time. The “What? – So what? – Now what?” framework is a simple way to move from description to learning and action.
Select each stage of the cycle to explore the questions that can help you reflect.
What happened?
Give enough context to understand the experience, without turning the reflection into a complete case history. Think about what happened, what you noticed, what you were thinking at the time and the decisions you made.
Questions to consider- What happened?
- What was I thinking at the time?
- What decisions did I make?
- Was anything unexpected?
- What assumptions was I making?
Why did it matter?
This is where reflection moves beyond description. Explore why the experience mattered, what it tells you about your practice and whether it challenged the way you think, communicate or make decisions.
Questions to consider- Why was this important?
- How did I feel, and why?
- What went well?
- What could have been different?
- What have I learnt about myself, the patient or the system?
What will I do next?
Turn the learning into something useful for future practice. This may be a change in your approach, something to practise, a topic to learn more about or a conversation to have with your supervisor.
Questions to consider- What would I do differently next time?
- Is there something I need to learn or practise?
- Do I need to change part of my clinical approach?
- Is this worth discussing with my supervisor?
- How will I know whether I have improved?
The national guidance behind this framework, including approaches to safe and meaningful reflection.
Using AI appropriately
Generative AI can be useful in education when it helps you think more deeply, but it should not replace your own reflection or create evidence on your behalf. The safest principle is simple: use AI to challenge your thinking, not to do your thinking for you.
Helpful uses
- Ask it to challenge your assumptions.
- Ask for reflective questions you may not have considered.
- Use it to explore alternative perspectives.
- Ask it to test whether you have explained your learning clearly.
- Use it to organise thoughts that you have already generated.
Not appropriate
- Do not ask it to invent or embellish clinical experiences.
- Do not submit an AI-written reflection as if it were your own thinking.
- Do not use it to manufacture portfolio evidence.
- Do not rely on it for factual accuracy without checking.
- Do not enter identifiable patient information into an inappropriate AI system.
Use AI to help you think — not to do your thinking for you.
Who does what?
The different supervisor roles and reports can feel confusing at first. The pathway below shows how placement-level supervision feeds into your Educational Supervisor Review and then into the formal ARCP decision about progression.
Clinical Supervisor
Your current placementProvides day-to-day clinical supervision within the placement and contributes structured feedback on how you are progressing in that post.
Clinical Supervisor’s Report
Placement feedbackA structured report from the Clinical Supervisor summarising observations about your performance in the post. Where your CS is different from your ES, the CSR provides important evidence for the ESR.
Educational Supervisor
Your overall developmentTakes the wider view across your training, reviews your portfolio and helps identify learning needs. In West Mid, from August 2025, trainees normally keep one ES throughout ST1 and ST2; in ST3 the ES role transfers to the named GP trainer at the final GP placement.
Educational Supervisor Review
Educational reviewBrings together the evidence in your portfolio and reviews your overall progress against the GP capabilities. A full ESR is expected annually; an interim ESR may be used at the midpoint when progress is satisfactory and the national criteria are met.
ARCP Panel
Formal progression decisionThe Annual Review of Competence Progression considers the evidence in your portfolio and decides whether you are progressing satisfactorily, need additional development or have completed the required capabilities for training.
The RCGP has introduced an optional Supplementary Supervisors’ Report (SSR) for non-clinical and simulation-based work. It can add structured feedback where there is limited clinical supervisory evidence, but it complements rather than replaces a CSR for any clinical element of a post.
Getting ready for your ESR & ARCP
Your ESR is much easier when the portfolio has been kept up to date throughout the review period. Use this checklist as a final sense-check rather than trying to complete everything in the few days before your meeting.
What can the panel decide?
Select an outcome to see what it means.
Satisfactory progress
Progress and competence development are at the expected rate.
Specific development needed
Some competences need further development, but no additional training time is required.
Additional training time required
Progress is not yet sufficient and a formal additional period of training is required.
Released from training
The trainee is released from the training programme, with or without specified competences.
Incomplete evidence
The panel cannot make a progression decision because the evidence presented is incomplete; additional training time may be required.
Completed required competencies
All required competencies for the programme have been gained; this is the usual completion-of-training outcome.
Useful guidance & support
These external resources are the sources we would use for detailed or changing requirements. West Mid guidance is intended to help you understand and apply them, rather than reproduce every national rule on this page.
National guidance on reflective practice, including the What? – So what? – Now what? framework.
Open resource ↗RCGPRCGP WPBA requirements and trackerUse the current national tracker for mandatory WPBA evidence rather than relying on an old static table.
Open resource ↗RCGPRCGP Trainee Portfolio and WPBA guidanceCurrent national guidance on learning logs, assessments, supervision and ARCP.
Open resource ↗FOURTEENFISHFourteenFish Help CentreTechnical support and step-by-step guidance for portfolio access, supervisors, review periods and portfolio functions.
Open resource ↗FOURTEENFISHFourteenFish video tutorialsCurrent video walkthroughs for common Trainee Portfolio tasks.
Open resource ↗RCGPGenerative AI in GP training and WPBACurrent RCGP guidance on critical, ethical and appropriate use of generative AI in training and workplace-based assessment.
Open resource ↗