The first National Guideline to manage Complaints, Compliments and Suggestions (CCS) was published in 2017 and came into effect on 1 April 2018 and was revised in 2021 with implementation on 1 April 2022. The training module covers the content of the revised CCS guideline and outlines the procedure to follow to effectively manage CCS at different levels in the health system.

The overall objective of the guideline is to provide direction to the public health sector of South Africa regarding the effective management of CCS, to ensure that the right of patients and/or their families/support persons to complain is upheld and to gather valuable information from which the health system could learn to bringing about the required change to improve quality of care.

The key objectives are to cover the following:

• Purpose
• Scope
• Definitions
• Legal and policy framework
• Guiding principles
• Complaints management
• Compliments and suggestions management
• Requirements for a written standard operating procedure to manage CCS
• Implementation by CCS committees
• Monitoring and compliance
• Use of the web-based information system