Report on the Performance of Activities of the National Preventive Mechanism for 2016 Although employees usually treat elderly and disabled persons in a very professional manner, violations of certain constitutional and legal rights have been noticed, including certain degrading treatments. Insufficient staff numbers affect considerably the quality of services that are being provided; therefore, users who have difficulty moving or are unable to move independently, are usually not encouraged to get out of bed. In certain rooms, there is not enough space for a wheelchair to pass through a doorway. In order to maintain good quality of life, it is particularly important for disabled persons not to spend the whole time in bed, but that they are provided with a possibility to be transferred into a wheelchair and taken to common rooms where they can socialize and participate in group leisure activities. Although this is the wish of some disabled users staying in the home in Zadar, due to staff shortage, they think chances are too small to talk to anyone about this. Therefore, all systematized job positions should be filled and accommodation conditions aligned with prescribed minimum standards. People with severe dementia, staying in the closed ward of the Home for the Elderly and Disabled in Split, are deprived of the possibility to spend time in the fresh air and they are allowed to go for a walk only when their family comes for a visit. This is also a consequence of staff shortage, which is unacceptable. We continue to record cases which involve doors being left open and/or failure to use screens while users are being tended to in rooms or bathrooms, which undermines their privacy and may have a degrading impact, which is something employees must pay special attention to. Some homes have locked wards, where persons who may not leave the premises of their own accord are placed; however, legal basis for this type of accommodation does not exist. If some patients need special protection or placement in this type of de facto closed wards, due to severity of their mental illness, such is for example dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease, then this is something that should be legally regulated. Only one article of the Act on Protection of Persons with Mental Disorders regulates the question of use of means of coercion in social care institutions, pursuant to which they may be used only in case of persons suffering from more severe mental disorders and this under conditions and in the manner determined by the relevant psychiatric institution. According to data from the Ministry for Demography, Family, Even though measures of isolation, Youth and Social Policy regarding means of physical restraint and chemical restraint coercion, which they call restrictive procedures, are used very rarely in social care it is clear that they are not applied under the institutions, failure to follow the legally same conditions and in the same manner as prescribed procedures represents violation those in psychiatric institutions. Decisions are of rights of a person with serious mental not always passed in written form and in cases disorders. of emergency, phone consultations with psychiatrists cannot replace the patient being directly examined. Institutions do not employ psychiatrists, but conclude piecework agreements with them, which is the reason why they are not allowed to follow the prescribed procedure of use of means of coercion. Even though 36