Retirement and nursing homes 2 Findings and recommendations 2.1 Retirement and nursing homes 2.1.1 Introduction During the year under review 2017, a total of 100 retirement and nursing homes were visited by the NPM commissions. On the positive side, in many cases the facilities welcomed and accepted the recommendations made by the commissions as positive feedback and promised to make improvements. Socalled follow-up visits were carried out 24 times in order to monitor whether the promises made had been kept. In the year under review, the commissions made the most critical findings in the area of “measures that restrict freedom” (56), immediately followed by those related to living conditions in the facilities (53). There were also major findings on the issues of “health care” (45) and “personnel” (39). The activity of the NPM in the highly sensitive area of long-term inpatient care from a human rights perspective attracted considerable interest in 2017. This is substantiated by the huge response to the reporting about this section of last year’s report in the media (see NPM Report 2016 p. 27-47). The fact that structural violence is the subject matter of a report from a control body to the legislative breaks taboos and touches the self-perception of all those involved and the affected institutions. The report brought long-term care in homes to the focus of current media coverage. Any attempt to attribute the problem to isolated “cases of maladministration” or “black sheep” in the industry would be tantamount to trivialising the dramatic nature of the situation. Great media response to NPM report 2016 The former Minister of Social Affairs used the report on retirement and nursing homes in July 2017 as an opportunity to invite the competent regional ministers to a care summit. He informed the NPM in a written statement that the following topics were discussed at the summit: the existence, drafting and implementation of strategy concepts, systematic quality assurance and improved quality indicators, measures for determining personnel requirements to improve staffing levels and increase attractiveness of the caring profession as well as training and further training of staff in the prevention of violence, pain management, dealing with dementia and hospice and palliative care. Care summit as reaction The NPM then contacted all of the Laender to obtain concrete information. The Laender referred to the monitoring and control activity of the competent supervisory authorities as a quality assurance tool in their statements. The following initiatives are worth mentioning: The NPM considers the compendium of evidence-based “Care and nursing” guidelines (“Pflege und Betreuung”) published and updated in July 2017 by the Association for Viennese Social Institutions in Vienna as good practice in the New guidelines for all contractual partners in Vienna 23