Our Children’s Complex Care team use the Quality Reflective Cycle to evaluate, analyse, and make improvements to the quality of care we deliver for children and young people with complex needs.

The approach, based on Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle, helps us to examine quality of care based on real experiences. It provides a framework that allows us to build on things that work well, or not so well, by developing clear action plans.

The cycle has six stages and puts quality at the forefront of reflection. We use it to highlight areas or events that demonstrate quality. Its also used to learn from and prevent events we want to avoid.

Using the cycle helps us to ensure delivery of care is safe, effective, and of the highest quality.

Stages of the Quality Reflective Cycle

1. Description

This first stage looks at facts. It describes what we already know about the event in detail and requires context, so everyone has all the relevant information.

This includes asking:

  • What happened and in what order?
  • Where did it happen and who was involved?
  • What did we do and what did others do?

2. Feelings

3. Evaluation

4. Analysis

5. Conclusion

6. Action Plan

Why this is important

The Quality Reflective Cycle plays a key role in our clinical governance approach because it helps us to learn from care provision and when things change over time.

It means we can continue delivering safe, effective and evidence-based care because we constantly ask staff to put quality front and centre, while developing their skills.

By identifying our role in incidents or events, we then understand how they can be avoided altogether and can make real changes when reviewing quality of care.

Illustrated park background with climbing set and parents with children scattered around. 

Front left is a mum with her little boy who has a tracheostomy on his neck who is holding a train.

In the centre is a dad with his little girl who has lettered blocks next to her.

On the right is a mum and dad standing next to a pram.
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