Retirement and nursing homes competence of the nursing staff. A group of experts is drawing up guidelines for institutions on the issue of violence. The Land Salzburg, which primarily refers to the controls of the supervisory authorities for quality assurance, has added several of the risk areas also mentioned frequently by the NPM to the questionnaire they have been using to date. These include dealing with pain and disoriented residents. Expansion of competence of supervisory authority mechanism In April 2017, following the model used by other Laender, the extended team of the Lower Austrian Patients and Care Advocates took up their work as a point of contact for complaints from staff, residents, their relatives and representatives. Regular feedback from the outside should act as an early warning to all nursing homes about deficits and risks and the need for improvement. Early warning system in Lower Austria Further positive developments were observed during the commissions’ monitoring visits in the year under review. These are dealt with in chapter 2.1.7 “Positive observations”. In spite of these improvements in individual areas, several fundamental requirements of the NPM relating to structural deficits have not yet been addressed. The NPM appeals once again to the overall state responsibility of the Federal Government and the Laender to establish nationwide, uniform quality and care and financing standards. It also calls on to push for an occupational- and healthcare-science-based assessment of current qualitative and quantitative requirements in inpatient long-term care. There is unanimous agreement on the fact that the demand for nursing services is due to grow considerably in the future because of demographic developments and increasing employment levels. Under the slogan “ageing in place” or “mobile rather than inpatient” locally available and affordable types of care for older persons should be supported that enable senior citizens to remain living under their own roof for as long as possible. These would include care offers that structure their day, mobile services, 24-hour support and/or the support of relatives at a time when the care needs of older persons are on the increase. According to surveys, this actually reflects the wishes of the vast majority of older persons in Austria and other European countries (European Commission 2007, IFES 2010, WIFO 2014). In the opinion of the NPM, the care fund should be permanently safeguarded and amongst others used to pursue the harmonisation of the resident long-term care conditions in the Laender. Safeguarding the future of care provision is responsibility of State An “age of longevity and care” is imminent in Austria due to demographic change. In less than ten years, Austria will be one of the countries with the oldest population in the world. New ways of looking at age and models for the inclusion of the elderly in all areas of politics are thus needed – and not only significant changes in the health and social area. Increasingly complex care processes and a changed morbidity spectrum for geriatric patients require a more intensive interlinking of primary medical and nursing care Longevity and care is challenges all areas of politics 25