The NPM commended the efforts of the management of MD Jarše to renovate dilapidated garden fences and to care for the surrounding area of the institution. Concluding observations on visits The NPM determined that the managements of all four institutions which we visited in 2016 are striving to realise their objectives together with their staff. In the 2015 report, we noted that the living conditions in residential treatment institutions were worsening every year. Unfortunately, we have to repeat this finding in 2016. The buildings and equipment have rarely been renovated or replaced in recent years; for the most part, urgent maintenance works were implemented. The NPM commended the broad selection of free-time activities offered to children and adolescents by the institutions. The management in all institutions stressed the good staff structure, their competence and the motivation of childcare teachers to work. The institutions highlighted the lack of funds for educating their staff, so they particularly carefully plan education courses, exchange information and knowledge with each other and invite external experts into their midst. The management of the institutions also pointed to the problem of children and adolescents with combined disorders, who do not receive suitable paedo-psychiatric treatment and assistance. In practice, a child or adolescent after an urgent admission is unexpectedly, and contrary to the guarantees provided upon admission, released from the paedo-psychiatric or the psychiatric ward where they have been accommodated together with adult patients. The institutions also stressed that children and adolescents released from psychiatric wards return to institutions without diagnoses or suitable instructions on the recommended treatment of adolescents, although the institutions ask psychiatrists for such recommendations. The staff in institutions are thus left to their own initiative and resourcefulness. The NPM highlighted the inappropriate treatment of children and adolescents already in the general Ombudsman’s report for 2016. In particular, we believe that the current practice of accommodating children and adolescents among adult patients is inadmissible. A suitable solution must be found as soon as possible. The issue of the inappropriate accommodation and treatment of children and adolescents was also mentioned by the Ombudsman during her presentation of the 2015 Annual Report in the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia. She received an assurance from a representative of the Ministry of Health that the investment had been approved. Regarding this issue, the Ombudsman and her colleagues met Dr Bojan Zalar, Director of Ljubljana University Psychiatric Hospital, in August 2016, and he presented two options that were developed by Ljubljana University Psychiatric Hospital. The short-term plan anticipated the establishment of a special secure ward for the psychiatric treatment of children and adolescents at their hospital which, according to the Director, could have already been open in the autumn of 2016. The medium-term plan anticipated the more comprehensive solution of constructing a newly designed centre for children and adolescents in a house at Poljanski nasip street 58, which would first have to be renovated, and all entities providing services at the location would have to be removed, which would require at least two years, according to the Director of Ljubljana University Psychiatric Hospital. We learned that the proposal to establish a uniform Slovenian secure ward for children and adolescents which would be realised within Ljubljana University Psychiatric Hospital was confirmed at the meeting of the Expanded Professional Board of Psychiatry and Paediatrics on 10 May 2016. It was understood from the minutes of the meeting of 18 August 2016 between Ljubljana University Medical Centre and Ljubljana University Psychiatric Hospital that the managements had harmonised their opinions regarding the establishment of an intensive (closed) ward for child and adolescent psychiatry. Following assurances that, after many years of discussion, the relevant ward would finally be established, thus ending problems involving the placement of over one hundred children and adolescents (some 120 children and adolescents were hospitalised in wards with adults in 2015) with the most challenging diagnoses who annually require paedo-psychiatric treatment, with accommodation in secure wards of psychiatric institutions (Ljubljana and Maribor), we unfortunately established that the issue was still at the discussion stage. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DUTIES AND POWERS OF THE NPM IN 2016 NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM UNDER THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT 107