Attendance Allowance check → What counts as needing help

What counts as needing help

The form is scored on ordinary things — washing, dressing, meals, medicines, nights. Here is what the DWP is actually asking about, in plain words.

It is about help, not illness

There is no list of conditions that qualify and no medical test to pass. The question the form asks, over and over in different words, is whether someone needs help or supervision — not whether they get it, and not whether anyone is there to give it. Someone living alone and struggling qualifies on exactly the same terms as someone with a daughter next door.

What the day-time questions cover

• Washing and bathing — getting in and out of the bath, washing hair, standing long enough for a shower, drying afterwards.
• Dressing — buttons, zips, tights, shoes, getting a jumper over the head, a bra fastening behind the back.
• Eating — cutting food up, lifting a full kettle or a hot pan, remembering to eat at all.
• Medicines — remembering them, getting them out of the packet, taking them at the right time.
• The toilet — getting there in time, getting up afterwards, managing clothes.
• Moving about indoors — getting out of a chair, stairs, steadying yourself on the furniture.
• Being kept an eye on — because of falls, dizziness, confusion, a hob left on, a door left open.

What the night-time questions cover

Needing help to get to the toilet, needing turning or settling, needing someone to listen out because of falls or confusion. Night-time need is what separates the two rates: £76.70 a week if help is needed by day or by night, £114.60 if it is needed by day and night, or if someone is nearing the end of life.

What it does not cover

This is the part that catches people out. There is no mobility component. Difficulty walking to the shops, giving up the bus, not being able to manage the front steps — on their own, none of these score anything. Claims built on walking are the ones that come back refused. If getting about outdoors is the only difficulty, this is probably not the right benefit, and we would rather say so before anyone pays anybody.

“I manage” is the most expensive sentence on the form

People of this generation answer the way they answer the doctor. They do manage — by sitting on the edge of the bath, by holding the radiator, by taking forty minutes to dress, by having toast instead of cooking. The form is scored on how the day actually goes: what takes much longer than it should, what is done in a way that is not safe, and what has quietly been given up. That is what needs writing down.

Bad days count too

Arthritis, breathlessness and dizziness come and go. The claim is judged on what is needed most of the time, so a week with four bad days is a week that needs describing honestly — not averaged away into “I'm alright really”.