customer relations creating the false idea that the services they provide are similar to social services registered as “retirement homes”. In all the 9 visited centres, NPM discovered the following drawbacks: staff with no qualifications and no employment contract; some beneficiaries suffered from malnutrition, were locked in their rooms at night. NPM recommended that municipal authorities should: ● in case of an alleged absence of the authorization to provide residential social services, notify this to the relevant regional authority; ● not refer the customers, their families and the guardian to non-registered facilities for residential social services. ♦ the Austrian NPM recommended that retirement homes: ● to maintain and improve the staff’s working capacity, professional psychological supervision is needed during working hours, as well as external supervisors, who can select care teams. This would improve psychological hygiene and would help prevent exhaustion, harassment and violence; ● homes are not a suitable environment for disabled young people; ● unusual meal hours (improper hours) and waking up too early are an expression of structural violence and should be avoided. Evening activities were recommended for residents with dementia who suffered from insomnia and were restless; ● the residents’ wishes had to be considered, nutritional recommendations had to be observed. Three main meals and two snacks are ideal. The time between meals should not exceed five hours, and the time between dinner and breakfast should not exceed twelve hours; ● access to open air must be ensured once a day, especially for persons with mobility-related disabilities; ● the right to privacy must be maintained, both when medical assistance is provided, and when rooms with several occupants are configured (visual barriers by means of panels, etc.); ● freedom-restraining measures are frequently useless after psycho-social interventions, personal care and consideration of individual needs are a priority; ● freedom restraints for medicines are subject to control by courts and must be reported by the management of the centres of the residents’ representatives as part of the exercise of individuals’ rights; ● persons in institutions for elderly people must be able to freely elect their physicians; ● care by other specialized physicians must be ensured with no restrictions. 39