Retirement and nursing homes 2.1.6 Large facilities for persons with psychiatric disease Misplacement of persons with chronic illnesses in Styrian nursing home In the year under review, Commission 3 visited nursing homes in Styria that care for persons with psychiatric diagnoses. These facilities have 70 to 140 care places and are primarily for the long-term care of patients with a psychiatric disease. In these cases, private operators also receive a psychiatry allowance from the Land in addition to the regular daily rate. In the past, the NPM has already criticised placing persons with mental illnesses in nursing homes. The chronically ill are thus excluded from normal everyday life. However, the objective of the psychiatry reforms in recent decades was to build up local care structures for persons with chronic mental illness in tow with reducing the number of beds in psychiatric hospitals. This was also designed to avoid repeated long-term stays and involuntary placement in psychiatric long-term wards. But there have been no accompanying structural reform efforts for the development of adequate, alternative and local assistance for persons with chronic psychiatric diseases in Styria. The failure to build up local care structures (fully assisted living and housing facilities and a rehabilitating daily structure) coupled with the simultaneous surplus of beds results in persons currently being hospitalised at just 30 years of age. The main focus in the care of persons with chronic psychiatric diseases in the facilities visited by Commission 3 is primarily on nursing aspects. The nursing homes have neither the specific needs-based treatment concepts that are adapted to individual needs for assisting persons with ICD-F diagnoses nor do they provide tailored support measures for their rehabilitation. Continuing and long-standing functional problems however would call for specific assistance and help for every functional area (self-care, work, taking part in social life). Nursing homes are not in a position to provide this. It is crucial that the misplacements are (at least gradually) reversed and stopped. The NPM views the approach practised by the regional government of Styria to be a breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This comprises sponsoring nursing homes with psychiatry allowances when they admit younger persons rather than reallocating existing funds to the setting up and expanding of suitable residential groups, partially assisted living and social and occupational rehabilitation. 38