Using the App

Portfolio Assistant

Premium tool. The Portfolio Assistant is the AI Assistant tab inside the IBMS portfolio assistant at /portfolio (My training → IBMS portfolio). The old address /portfolio-assistant redirects there.

The other tabs on that page (Learning Path, Evidence Library, Progress) are the structured record; see Building your IBMS and HCPC portfolio. The AI Assistant tab is where you draft and check the writing.

What it does

• Takes raw notes from your day (a tricky case, an audit you contributed to) and helps you turn them into a structured reflective entry suitable for IBMS portfolio evidence
• Checks an evidence statement against the IBMS competency you are writing for and suggests what is missing
• Supports the Registration Training Portfolio, Certificate of Competence by Equivalence, Specialist Diploma and Higher Specialist Diploma; choose the portfolio type at the top of the tab

Workflow

1. Open /portfolio and click the AI Assistant tab.
2. Choose your portfolio type.
3. Paste or type your raw notes. The assistant asks structuring questions: what happened, what did you learn, what would you do differently, what is the patient-safety or quality impact?
4. The assistant produces a draft reflective entry.
5. Edit it, then save it as an entry in the Evidence Library against the right competency, or download the assistant's answers as a text file to paste into your official portfolio.

Reflective practice model

The assistant uses Gibbs' Reflective Cycle (Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis, Conclusion, Action plan). If your training officer prefers another model such as Driscoll's "What, So what, Now what", use the Gibbs draft as raw material and restructure it.

Anti-patterns the assistant flags

• Description-only reflections with no analysis
• Repeated similar evidence for the same competency (verifiers want breadth)
• Patient-identifiable details in your reflection text (you must anonymise; the assistant flags potential identifiers)
• Reflection without a learning outcome

Privacy note

Your draft text is sent to our AI provider to generate the response and is not used to train models. Google Gemini is named as a processor in our Privacy Policy. Do not paste patient identifiers; see Your data and GDPR rights.

Who it is for

• Pre-registration trainees: Registration Training Portfolio drafting
• Band 5 and above: Specialist Diploma drafting in your specialty
• Band 6 and 7: Higher Specialist Diploma drafting (see also /biomedical-sciences/higher-specialist-diploma-hsd)

Training officers and verifiers do not have a separate mode; formal verification happens through the IBMS process, not on this platform.

Common interview question themes

• "How do you keep your reflective practice meaningful?"
• "Tell me about a recent reflection that changed your practice"
• "How do you map evidence to competencies?"
• "How do you anonymise patient information in your reflective writing?"

Pair the assistant with the AI Interview Coach and your specialty Result Interpretation module; interpretation cases make good seed material for reflective entries.