Attendance Allowance check → The AA1 daytime care questions (28 to 41), explained

The AA1 daytime care questions (28 to 41), explained

Question by question through the daytime part of the AA1 form: what each one asks, what matters, and illustrative examples of clear answers.

Written and checked by the Attendance Allowance Check team at Virix Ltd. Last reviewed 25 September 2026 against gov.uk.

Questions 28 to 41 of the AA1 form, on pages 13 to 22, cover the help you need during the day. On this form “the day” includes the evening; night starts when the household has closed down. Each question has tick boxes, boxes for how often each day, and a space for anything else you want to say. This guide goes through them one at a time. For an overview of the whole form, see how to fill in the AA1.

What the person deciding is looking for

For the daytime part of Attendance Allowance, the law asks whether someone needs either:

• frequent attention throughout the day with bodily functions — washing, dressing, eating, using the toilet, getting in and out of bed, moving about, seeing, hearing, communicating; or
• continual supervision throughout the day to avoid substantial danger to themselves or others.

A few points from the DWP's guidance for decision makers are worth knowing:

• Frequent means several times, spread through the day. Help given only first thing, at lunchtime and in the evening is not normally treated as frequent on its own. So the small moments matter: being helped up from a chair, reminded about tablets, steadied on the way to the toilet.
• What counts is the help you reasonably need, not the help you receive. Someone may go without help they need.
• Housework is not personal care. Cooking, shopping and cleaning do not generally count. Cutting up food, eating and drinking do.
• Encouragement counts. Being prompted to eat, wash, dress or get out of bed, by someone who is with you, is help.

About the examples below

The examples on this page are illustrative examples only. They are invented to show the difference between a vague answer and a clear one. They are not about real people, and they are not wording to copy. Your answers should describe your own days, in your own words.

Question 28: when your care needs started

Attendance Allowance is normally paid only once help has been needed for six months. Give the date the help you describe began. If you cannot remember, a rough date is fine — “about March last year, after my hip operation”. Something that happened at the time, such as a fall, a diagnosis or a hospital stay, helps anchor the date.

Question 29: getting into and out of bed

What it asks: whether you have difficulty, or need help, getting out of bed in the morning or into bed at night. There are also boxes for needing encouragement because of difficulty concentrating or motivating yourself, and a space to say if you go back to bed during the day or stay in bed all day.

What matters: how you get up, how long it takes, and what happens if nobody is there.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “A bit stiff in the mornings.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “My hips are stiff first thing. I roll on to my side and push up on the bed rail. It takes about ten minutes, and on bad days, four or five a week, my husband has to swing my legs round and pull me up.”

Question 30: toilet needs

What it asks: getting to the toilet and using it — or a commode, bedpan or bottle — and managing incontinence pads, a catheter or cleaning yourself afterwards. Each part has a box for how often each day. The form's own example is help to get to and use the toilet four times a day.

What matters: every visit you need help with, including accidents and changing afterwards.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “Sometimes need help.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “I go about six times in the day. I need a hand up from the toilet seat each time because my knees give way. Two or three times a week I do not get there in time, and my daughter helps me wash and change.”

Question 31: washing, bathing and appearance

What it asks: getting in and out of the bath, using a shower, washing and drying yourself, and personal hygiene — cleaning teeth, washing hair, shaving. It also asks about looking after your appearance, and about needing reminders to wash.

What matters: whether you can wash safely and fully, not only whether you can reach the sink.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “I have a strip wash.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “I cannot get into the bath any more — I got stuck in it last winter. I strip wash at the sink, sitting on a stool. I cannot lift my arms to wash my hair, so a neighbour does it twice a week. I cannot reach my feet to dry them.”

Question 32: dressing and undressing

What it asks: putting on and fastening clothes and shoes, taking them off, choosing suitable clothes, and needing encouragement to dress or reminders to change. The form suggests saying if you get breathless, feel pain, or take a long time.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “Fine, just slow.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “Getting dressed takes around forty minutes because I stop to get my breath back. I cannot do buttons or a bra behind my back, and I cannot bend to put on socks or tie shoes. My son does these in the morning, and helps me undress at night.”

Question 33: moving around indoors

What it asks: walking indoors, stairs, getting in and out of a chair, and moving to and from a wheelchair. “Indoors” means anywhere inside, not just your home. The form suggests saying if you hold on to furniture or take a long time.

What matters: this is about getting about inside. Difficulty walking outdoors is not, on its own, what this benefit covers.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “I use a stick.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “Indoors I hold on to the furniture and walls. I need help to get out of low chairs — someone takes my hands and pulls. I only go upstairs once a day, at bedtime, with my wife behind me in case I fall back.”

Question 34: falls and stumbles

What it asks: whether you fall or stumble because of your condition, why, and whether you hurt yourself; when you last fell and last stumbled; roughly how many falls and stumbles in the last month and the last year; whether you have been referred to a falls clinic; and whether you need help to get up.

What matters: the DWP's guidance separates falls caused by a health condition from accidental falls that could happen to anybody. The decision maker considers whether falls are predictable, whether they could cause serious harm, and whether that risk is real rather than remote. So explain the cause, what happens, and what happened afterwards.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “I have had the odd fall.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “I get dizzy when I stand up, because of my blood pressure tablets. I have fallen three times this year. Last month I fell in the kitchen, cut my head and could not get up. I lay there for about an hour until my neighbour heard me. I stumble most days. I have been referred to the falls clinic.”

Question 35: eating and drinking

What it asks: cutting up food, getting food and drink to your mouth, and identifying food on your plate. There are boxes for needing encouragement or reminders to eat or drink.

What matters: eating itself. Difficulty cooking is not what this question is about.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “I eat ready meals.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “My hands shake, so I cannot cut meat, and I spill drinks unless the cup is half full. My wife cuts up my food at every main meal. Since my memory got worse, I forget to eat lunch unless she reminds me.”

Question 36: medicines and treatment

What it asks: taking medicines and handling treatment — injections, inhalers, eye drops, physiotherapy exercises, oxygen, coping with side effects, and help from mental health services. It includes knowing which medicines to take, how much and when.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “My tablets are in a dosette box.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “I take eleven tablets at four times of day. I cannot press them out of the packets because of my arthritis, and I have taken the wrong ones twice this year. My daughter fills a dosette box weekly and phones to check. I need eye drops twice a day and cannot get them in myself.”

If a reminder is given in person, it is help with a bodily function. It is still worth mentioning phone reminders, because they show the difficulty you have remembering.

Question 37: communicating

What it asks: whether you need another person's help to communicate, answering as if you are using your normal aids, such as glasses or a hearing aid. The tick boxes cover understanding people you do not know well, being understood, concentrating or remembering, using the phone, reading letters and filling in forms, and asking for help when you need it.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “A bit deaf.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “Even with both hearing aids I cannot follow a phone call or a conversation with a stranger. My son makes my calls, comes to appointments to repeat what is said, and reads my post to me because of my macular degeneration.”

Question 38: how many days a week

This asks how many days a week you have difficulty or need help with everything in questions 28 to 37. If your condition varies, give a clear number and say what the other days are like. “Five days a week; on the other two I still need help with the bath and my tablets” is more useful than “it varies”.

Question 39: hobbies, social and religious activities

What it asks: whether you need someone's help to take part in hobbies, interests, social or religious activities — at home and when you go out. It covers help you get and help you would need to do something you would like to do. There are columns for the activity, the help needed and how often.

Illustrative example — clearer: “I would like to go to church on Sundays but cannot without someone to help me in and out of the car, guide me to a seat and take me to the toilet during the service. At home I need someone to set up my large-print books and audio player.”

Questions 40 and 41: someone keeping an eye on you

What it asks: whether you usually need someone to keep an eye on you, and why. The tick boxes cover preventing danger to yourself or others, not being aware of common dangers, risk of neglecting or harming yourself, wandering, fits, dizzy spells or blackouts, confusion, and hearing voices. It asks how long you can safely be left at a time. Question 41 asks how many days a week you need this.

What matters: in the DWP's guidance, supervision is different from hands-on help. It means someone being nearby and ready to step in. To count, the risk must be real, the danger substantial, and the need continual — going on all the time with only brief breaks. An honest answer to “how long can you be left?” is one of the most useful things on this page.

Illustrative example — less helpful: “My family pop in.”

Illustrative example — clearer: “Since my stroke I have had dizzy spells without warning, two or three a week. I have left the gas on twice and once walked out of the front door in my slippers and could not find my way back. My family do not leave me for more than about an hour. I need this every day.”

Gaps that are easy to leave in this section

• Blank “how often” boxes. A tick without a number leaves the reader guessing.
• Only listing the help someone already gives. Include what you struggle with alone.
• Forgetting prompting and reminding. Encouragement to wash, eat or take tablets is help.
• Describing a good day. Say how many days are bad and what they look like.
• Putting night-time help here. Help after the household has gone to bed belongs in the night section — see our guide to the night-time questions.
• Running out of room. Use each “anything else” box, question 46, and question 63.

For a plain summary of which difficulties count and which do not, see what counts as needing help.

If you would like a hand with it

We are a private company, Virix Ltd, and we go through these questions with you over the telephone, one at a time, then print the completed form and post it to you to check and sign. It costs £149, once — and if they say no, we help you ask them to look again, free; if the answer is still no, you get the £149 back. Or £249, paid only if the claim is awarded. You can equally do it yourself at no cost, or ask Age UK or Citizens Advice, who help for free where they have capacity. How the options compare.