Significant Events should act as a learning process for the whole practice. Individual SEs can be shared between members of staff, including GPs, and should focus on disseminating learning within the practice.

The aims of undertaking SE analysis is to:

• Identify events in individual cases that have been critical (beneficial or detrimental to the outcome) and to improve the quality of patient care from the lessons learnt.
• Instigate a culture of openness and reflective learning, not individual blame or self-criticism
• Enable team-building and support following stressful episodes
• Enable identification of good as well as suboptimal practice
• Be a useful tool for team and individual continuing professional development, identifying group and individual learning needs
• Share learning between teams within the NHS where adverse events occur at the 'overlap' or in shared domains of clinical responsibility (such as out-of-hours, discharge problems).