The Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC) and the Health Ombud are key entities in South Africa’s healthcare regulatory system.

The OHSC is an independent body established under the National Health Amendment Act (No. 12 of 2013) to ensure quality and safety in healthcare by promoting and protecting the health and safety of users (patients) of healthcare services by monitoring and enforcing compliance of health establishments with the norms and standards prescribed by the national health system and ensuring that complaints of non-compliance with prescribed norms and standards are considered, investigated, and disposed of in a procedurally fair, economical, and expeditious manner.

The Health Ombud is an independent office within the OHSC investigating complaints about healthcare services, particularly in public healthcare facilities. The Ombud allows patients and healthcare workers to report substandard care or rights violations.

The term “health establishments” refers to public and private healthcare facilities that provide or are intended to provide inpatient or outpatient treatment, diagnostic or therapeutic procedures, nursing, rehabilitation, palliative, convalescent, preventive or other healthcare services. It includes hospitals and primary healthcare clinics and extends to emergency medical services (EMS), hospices, private medical practices, and institutions offering frail care.