Prior to the inspection of the NPM the SPH have never been subject to any inspection by the competent authorities with regard to their medical activities. This negative finding is one of the main reasons for failure to comply with the medical standards and for insufficient volume and type of care which are provided to patients. Also the team of the NPM believes that there is no connection between the different units of medical institutions for provision of inpatient psychiatric care in the Republic of Bulgaria. There is no possibility to determine where, how often, how, by what and for how long a person is treated. It is also possible a patient to be kept in the records of several inpatient psychiatric hospitals simultaneously. The only information about the treatment of mentally ill persons in outpatient care and it is associated with the release of medicines under the National Health Insurance Fund, which are accounted because of their high price. This inability to follow-up the condition and the treatment of patients is the reason for the complete lack of coordination between the medical diagnostic operations concerning patients with mental illnesses in the Republic of Bulgaria. This circumstance is due to the fact that there is no a national register of mentally ill persons. In connection with the above the NPM team believes that the forthcoming transfer of inpatient psychiatric care to the NHIF funding could solve the problem with the lack of links between the different units of the medical institutions for provision of inpatient psychiatric care. Problem is not only the lack of a unified register of persons under guaridanship, but also of the persons receiving methadone. During the inspections the problem with the lack of adequate provision of social services has been also established. BASIC FINDINGS FROM THE INSPECTIONS PERFORMED IN HOMES FOR MEDICAL AND SOCIAL CARE FOR CHILDREN, HOMES FOR DISABLED CHILDREN AND HOMES FOR CHILDREN DEPRIVED OF PARENTAL CARE I. HOMES FOR MEDICAL AND SOCIAL CARE FOR CHILDREN In executing the annual schedule of the NPM five homes for medical and social care of children (HCDPC) have been inspected. Very important is the fact that according to the recent international studies placement in an institution at the age of 0 to 3 years is most detrimental to the overall physical and mental development of children. One of the ways for improvement of the children care in such homes is its personalization by applying an individual approach to each child. Admittance and stay During the inspections it was found that the children stay in the HCDPC for different periods of time. The shortest stay of children has been registered in the HCDPC - Blagoevgrad and in other homes it has been reported that the majority of children stay for two, even three years. The reasons for this are complex - on the one hand, they are related to the parents' refusal to give their consent to full adoption, the other is the lack or insufficient provision of alternative community 26 Annual Report of the National Preventive Mechanism | OMBUDSMAN OF THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA