The NPM recommended that staff in Ribnica Retirement Home do not lock residents’ rooms without a valid reason. When there is danger of items being removed (a resident with progressive dementia could enter someone else’s room and take an item they thought was theirs), room keys could be given to residents able to lock and unlock the room on their own, and able to take care of the key. The staff could lock the rooms of other residents, in which case they would have to be alert and immediately unlock the room and enable access to a resident wanting to access their room. In their reply to the preliminary report, the management clarified that the staff would lock the rooms only when they are being aired, since windows on the northern side particularly present a risk of falls when they are open. At other times, the rooms were unlocked. One resident disposed of his own key and locked the room himself. The NPM commended the efforts of Medvode Retirement Home to personalise residents’ rooms, and also proposed that the same symbols on the doors be replaced with various symbols (e.g. the symbol of the profession that the resident practised) to facilitate residents’ orientation in space. It also added that the provision of personal data be reduced due to personal data protection. In their reply to our preliminary report, the management claimed that the staff would gradually begin to replace symbols in the secure ward and reduce information. They would further personalise symbols and reduce the provision of personal data. The NPM commended Trnovo Retirement Home for innovatively equipping doors of individual rooms with distinctive symbols of professions that residents practised in the past, and it also proposed that the doors of other rooms be equipped in the same or similar manner (e.g. simple symbols) to facilitate orientation. In their reply to the preliminary report, the management explained that they would equip all doors with recognised symbols of professions that the residents practised in the past as soon as possible. Religious ceremonies The NPM recommended that information about contacting a representative of their religion or when organising a suitable ceremony should be provided in a brochure in a visible place in the secure ward (and in other wards if necessary) at the Jurišinci Unit. Ptuj Retirement Home particularly highlighted in its reply to the preliminary report that they agreed with the findings of the preliminary report, and they would observe the proposals when planning improvements and implementing services in the future. Although Polde Eberl Jamski Retirement Home was willing to help residents when establishing contacts with representatives of their religion, we were unable to find information on the large notice board on the secure ward about whom a resident (or their relative) could contact when experiencing difficulties in contacting a priest to provide suitable religious care. We thus repeated the relevant recommendation provided in this regard during our previous visit. The management of Polde Eberl Jamski Retirement Home replied to the preliminary report and clarified that the list or information about whom a resident could contact if in need of a priest was put on the main notice board of the home immediately after the NPM’s last visit; they also entered this information in the brochure on residents’ rights. But they had failed to put it on the board in the secure ward, which they did subsequently. 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 35