2 Findings and recommendations 2.1 Retirement and nursing homes 2.1.1 Introduction During the year under review, the AOB visited 89 retirement and nursing facilities. It intentionally monitored and controlled both large homes and very small facilities. The willingness to cooperate with the NPM was generally high. In one case, the competent commission decided to immediately discontinue the visit. An employee at the facility had committed suicide the previous day. The shock resulting from this event was clearly perceptible. The visit was postponed out of deference for this event. In Austria, there are around 850 larger retirement and nursing homes with more than 75,000 beds. More than 400 of these are public institutions and facilities. Slightly more than 450 retirement and nursing homes are owned or run by private entities, of which 79 are owned or run by religious organisations. Around 25% of these retirement and nursing homes have introduced a quality management system. As at the end of 2014, 32 homes had been awarded the National Quality Certificate for Residential and Nursing Homes in Austria. A statutory basis was created for the National Quality Certificate for Residential and Nursing Homes in Austria in an amendment to the Federal Senior Citizens Act (BundesSeniorengesetz) that became effective on 1 January 2013. The certificate has a third-party evaluation system that is uniform throughout Austria; it has the goal of making the quality of life in retirement and nursing homes transparent and to develop it further systematically. Quality management certificate The individual Laender have the regulatory authority for the operation of retirement and nursing homes, together with the institutional structures under which care and other services are provided (care standards, equipment, staffing ratio, trained staff quotas, medical care, duties of care, and rights of the residents). The Viennese Nursing Home Act (Wiener Pflegeheimgesetz) contains the most comprehensive catalogue of rights for home residents. Upper Austria is at the bottom of the scale, where the standardisation of such rights is very sparse. There are laws on nursing and care that are completely silent on the right to care and its implementation; others concede such rights only within the scope of services being offered or state that residents must be cared for in accordance with their needs and in compliance with their contractual rights. The right to respectful and professional care that is in accordance with current care standards is set out solely in Vienna. Regulations differ according to Laender 27