What is it?

“Significant Events Analysis (SEA) is a method of reflective learning which can be used to analyse episodes of care which would benefit from further review and reflection and can inform and develop future practice.”

SEA is an integral part of annual Appraisal and the re-validation cycle for GPs. More information can be found at SOAR Medical Appraisal Scotland

Why use it for improving Quality?

You should use an SEA when an incident has occurred resulting in unintentional harm to a patient. But an SEA should also be used in the case of a ‘near miss’, where harm was narrowly avoided.

SEAs do not always need to be negative; you could also use one to review a very positive event in order to understand what went well.

How to use it?

Read these 7 practical steps for SEA here.

Use a template to help ensure all contributing factors to the event are considered. It can also be helpful to visualise these in a Fishbone Diagram.

Interventions

As part of a SEA, you should determine what improvements can be made for each contributing factor to the event that has been identified. Not all interventions are created equally, with actions such as education/training often being the least effective, but simplification or standardisation of processes being more effective.

Read more about effective actions from a SEA here, with more examples on NHS Lothian’s intranet page here (this can only be accessed by NHS Lothian staff).