Resources
- Educators
- Practice supervisors
- Programme leads
Practice Loops for Nursing
Practice Loops is an open-source set of thirteen AI workflows for nursing tasks such as placement support, preceptorship reviews and reflective accounts. Each loop checks its draft against NMC standards, stops for the nurse to check its reasoning, and ends with human sign-off and an audit record. It comes from the same Clinical Quality AI (CQAI) community as this toolkit.
For the ideas behind it (the six pillars, the two human gates and the PRACTICE capabilities), read From prompts to Practice Loops first.
Never enter real patient, student or staff details. The Claude Code version includes a check that warns if a prompt looks like it contains identifiable data, and each loop is instructed to stop if it finds any, but no automated check is perfect. The responsibility stays with you.
Try it in your browser
The live simulator shows a loop running step by step, including the identifiable-data check, the Gate 1 pause, the ten-point verifier and the Gate 2 sign-off. It needs no installation or account.
Open the simulator in a new tab
The thirteen loops
| Loop | Turns this... | ...into a DRAFT |
|---|---|---|
| Action tracking | a meeting transcript | an action log with risks flagged for a human to grade |
| Clinical supervision | supervision notes | a restorative follow-up record (Proctor's model) |
| EDI intelligence | aggregate workforce figures | an equity briefing using rate-based comparison and small-number suppression |
| Incident reflection | incident or near-miss notes | a systems reflection (SEIPS model) covering learning, candour and actions |
| Placement support | placement meeting notes | a SMART action plan that separates learning needs from conduct concerns |
| Policy to practice | a policy or guideline | a plain-English implementation guide for a ward |
| Practice loop method | any clinical topic | a new, fully structured loop definition |
| Preceptorship | preceptee progress logs | a three-month review with confidence map and evidence gaps |
| Reasonable adjustments passport | an employee's adjustment needs | a draft Reasonable Adjustments Passport |
| Reflective practice | a clinical experience | a structured reflection (Gibbs, Driscoll, ERA or Rolfe) mapped to the NMC Code |
| Relational care | an interpersonal challenge | a person-centred relational action plan and debrief |
| Revalidation | practice hours and CPD log | an NMC revalidation portfolio check and reflective accounts |
| Teaching | a topic and audience level | a session resource mapped to NMC proficiencies |
Every output is marked DRAFT until a named professional signs it off.
Ways to use it
In Microsoft 365 Copilot
Most NHS staff are getting Microsoft 365 Copilot (see Choosing Platforms). The project's Microsoft 365 guide has copy-paste prompt templates for Copilot Chat and Word, and a Copilot Studio agent definition your organisation's Microsoft 365 team could deploy. Copilot runs the loops as instructions; it doesn't write the audit files that the Claude Code version creates, so keep your own record of sign-off.
In Claude Code
Add the plugin marketplace, then install the plugin:
/plugin marketplace add Clinical-Quality-Artifical-Intelligence/practice-loops
/plugin install practice-loops@cqai-practice-loops
Then run a loop by name, for example /placement-support. Audit records are saved in a practice-loop-audit folder.
The plugin can also remember a learner's progress between sessions, using pseudonyms. The project's own data protection assessment says this memory feature should stay switched off until the organisation using it has completed that assessment.
Safety documentation
The project publishes a clinical safety case, a hazard log and a data protection impact assessment template, aligned with DCB0129 (the NHS clinical risk management standard for manufacturers of health IT). They are useful teaching examples of what assurance for an AI workflow looks like:
They are manufacturer drafts: they haven't yet been reviewed and signed by a Clinical Safety Officer, and an organisation deploying the loops would also need its own DCB0160 safety case. Before using any loop in practice, talk to your organisation's Clinical Safety Officer and information governance team.
Licence
Practice Loops is published under the PolyForm Noncommercial Licence 1.0.0: free for non-commercial use, including education and NHS practice. The source is on GitHub.