Report of the Commissioner for Human Rights on the activities of the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture in Poland in 2017 The issue of SCHs’ cooperation with psychologists A key pillar of proper care for residents of social care homes is providing them with permanent and unrestricted access to a psychologist. Only a psychologist employed by the facility can provide such access in practice. The problem has been raised since 2013. However, every year the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy replies to the Commissioner that social care homes do not need psychologists or psychiatrists employed specifically within their structures, and that the frequency of the home residents’ contacts with psychologists is not determined by way of regulations because it depends on individual person’s needs. The NMPT: The question that should be asked in the context of the Ministry’s position concerns the quality of ad-hoc psychological care. The issue of family judges’ insufficient control over social care homes According to Article 43(1) of the AMHP, the court supervision over the legality of placement and stay of people with mental disorders in social care homes and over the observance of their rights and living conditions in the facilities, is required only in the case of social care homes for persons with mental illness or mental retardation. Residents with mental disorders may, however, stay also in other types of care homes, e.g. in homes for chronically ill persons. There are care homes not supervised by a court although they have some mentally ill residents. This puts some residents of social care homes in a worse position as their unsupervised deprivation of liberty, for an undetermined period of time, is against the necessity to guarantee to every person his/her personal freedom and the possibility to seek, through a visiting judge, the verification of the person’s situation. The NMPT: the regulations need to be changed 55