Attendance Allowance check → Attendance Allowance form: example answers

Attendance Allowance form: example answers

Four invented people, weaker and stronger answers to key AA1 questions, and why the stronger ones work. Illustrative only — not wording to copy.

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

People often search for a completed Attendance Allowance form to see what a “good” answer looks like. There is no standard sample to follow, and a finished form belonging to someone else would not help much anyway: the AA1 is about one person’s days and nights, and nobody else’s answers fit. What does help is seeing the difference between an answer that leaves the reader guessing and one that gives them a clear picture. This page does that through four invented people in four quite different situations.

Please read this first

Everyone on this page is made up. These are illustrative examples, written to show how an answer can be built. They are not real claimants, not taken from real forms, and not wording to copy.

Please do not lift sentences from here, or from anywhere else, on to your own form. The person deciding the claim needs to know about your life, and borrowed wording rarely fits it. More importantly, at question 64 you sign a declaration that the information is complete and correct. The form itself says that giving wrong or incomplete information can lead to prosecution, a financial penalty, your award being reduced or stopped, or having to pay money back. Describe what really happens, in your own words, bad days included.

The question numbers below are from the paper AA1 form, edition 11/25. For what each question asks in full, see our guides to the daytime questions and the night-time questions.

What makes an answer strong

In every example below, the stronger answer does the same few things. It is worth knowing the pattern before reading them, because it is the pattern you can use, not the words.

1. What is difficult — the task, in plain words.
2. Why — what your condition does: pain, stiffness, breathlessness, dizziness, forgetting, not seeing.
3. How often and how long — times a day, minutes each time, days a week.
4. Who helps and what they do — or what happens when nobody is there.
5. An example — one real incident, such as a fall or a missed dose, if there is one.

A weaker answer usually has only the first part, or none at all.

Example 1: Joan, 81, lives alone with arthritis

Invented situation: Joan has osteoarthritis in her hands, knees and hips. She lives alone in a bungalow. Her son lives two hours away and rings most evenings. Nobody helps her day to day, and she tends to say she is “fine”.

Question 31: washing and bathing

Weaker: “I manage with a strip wash.”

Stronger: “I have not been able to get in or out of the bath for two years because my knees will not take my weight. I wash at the basin sitting on a kitchen chair, which takes about half an hour. I cannot grip a flannel properly or reach my back and feet. I can only wash my hair when my son visits, about once a month, because I cannot lift my arms above my shoulders for long.”

Why it is stronger: it explains what she no longer does and why, how long washing takes, and which parts she cannot manage. “I manage” hides all of that.

Question 32: dressing

Weaker: “Slow but OK.”

Stronger: “My fingers are swollen and stiff most mornings, so I cannot do buttons, hooks or a zip at the back. I only wear clothes that pull on. I cannot bend to reach my feet, so I sleep in my socks and wear slip-on shoes. Getting dressed takes around forty minutes, with rests. On bad days, about four a week, I stay in my nightdress until the afternoon.”

Why it is stronger: “OK” suggests no need. The stronger answer shows the changes she has made to cope, which are themselves evidence of the difficulty.

Question 36: medicines

Weaker: “I take my own tablets.”

Stronger: “I cannot push tablets out of the blister packs or open bottles with child-proof tops, so the chemist puts them in a pack with snap lids. Even so, I often drop them and cannot pick them up off the floor. I cannot manage the eye drops for my glaucoma on my own — I miss my eye most times.”

Why it is stronger: it gives the reason — her hands — and names a specific task she cannot do. Living alone does not mean the help is not needed; the form asks about help needed whether you get it or not.

Example 2: Dennis, 84, dementia, daughter nearby

Invented situation: Dennis has Alzheimer’s disease. He lives with his wife, who is frail herself. Their daughter lives ten minutes away, calls in twice a day and is filling in the form with him. Dennis is physically fairly able, so most of his needs are about prompting and supervision.

Question 35: eating and drinking

Weaker: “Eats well.”

Stronger: “Dad will eat if a meal is put in front of him and someone sits with him, but on his own he forgets to eat or leaves the meal half-finished. He does not notice when he is thirsty, and we have found full cups of tea gone cold on most days. My mother or I remind him to eat and drink at every meal and several times between.”

Why it is stronger: encouragement and reminders from someone who is present count as help. “Eats well” is true only because someone makes sure he does.

Questions 40 and 41: keeping an eye on him in the day

Weaker: “Can be forgetful.”

Stronger: “Dad does not recognise danger any more. In the past three months he has left the gas ring on twice and let a stranger into the house who said he was from the council. He has walked out to post a letter and could not find his way home; a neighbour brought him back. We do not leave him for more than about half an hour. He needs this every day.”

Why it is stronger: supervision only counts when there is a real risk of substantial danger. The stronger answer names the dangers, gives recent examples, and answers the form’s question about how long he can safely be left.

Question 44: someone awake at night

Weaker: “Sleeps OK mostly.”

Stronger: “Three or four nights a week Dad wakes after midnight thinking it is morning and gets dressed to go to work. My mother has to get up, keep him away from the front door and settle him back to bed, which takes up to an hour. She cannot sleep properly in case he goes out.”

Why it is stronger: it shows why someone needs to be awake, not just in the house, and how often.

The statement from someone who knows him (questions 55 to 62)

Because his daughter is helping to fill in the form, she might think she should also write the statement. That is fine if Dennis signs the form himself. But if she is signing it on his behalf, the form asks for someone else to write this part — here, perhaps his GP practice nurse or a friend who sees him weekly.

Example 3: Patricia, 76, COPD, up in the night

Invented situation: Patricia has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She uses inhalers and a nebuliser and lives with her husband. She is breathless on small exertion and her nights are broken.

Question 16: illnesses and how they affect you

Weaker: “COPD. Inhalers.”

Stronger: “COPD, diagnosed 2019, getting worse over the last year. I get breathless doing anything with my arms raised or when bending, and I need to stop and sit after a few steps. I have had two chest infections this year, each needing steroids. Medicines are on the attached prescription list.”

Why it is stronger: the decision is based on what the condition does to you, not its name. Saying how it affects daily tasks leads naturally into the care questions.

Question 29: getting out of bed

Weaker: “Bit slow in the mornings.”

Stronger: “I wake up very tight-chested and need my nebuliser before I can move, which takes about fifteen minutes. My husband sets it up and holds the mask when my hands shake. He then helps me sit up and swing my legs round, and I sit on the edge of the bed for several minutes to get my breath before standing.”

Why it is stronger: it shows the help is hands-on and happens every morning, and it links getting up to the treatment she needs first.

Questions 42 and 43: help at night

Weaker: “Up a couple of times.”

Stronger: “I wake breathless two or three times a night, most nights. I need propping up on extra pillows and sometimes my nebuliser. My husband gets up, helps me sit forward, sorts the pillows and stays until my breathing settles, about twenty minutes each time. Once a night I need the toilet and he walks me there because I get dizzy and short of breath. This happens at least five nights a week.”

Why it is stronger: the night questions ask how many times, how many minutes and how many nights. Answering all three matters, because the night is what separates the two rates.

Example 4: Arthur, 88, poor sight and falls

Invented situation: Arthur has macular degeneration in both eyes and low blood pressure that makes him dizzy on standing. He lives with his wife in a two-storey house. He is proud and does not like to ask for help.

Question 34: falls and stumbles

Weaker: “Had a fall last year.”

Stronger: “I have fallen four times in the past year, all at home, because I get dizzy when I stand or misjudge a step I cannot see. In March I fell on the stairs and broke my wrist. Twice I could not get up without my wife’s help, and once she had to call an ambulance to lift me. I stumble most days. My GP has referred me to the falls clinic.”

Why it is stronger: the form asks for the cause, the number of falls, when the last one was, whether you were hurt and whether you can get up. The DWP’s guidance also looks at whether falls are predictable and likely to cause serious harm, so the cause and the consequences matter.

Question 37: communicating

Weaker: “Eyes not good.”

Stronger: “Even with my magnifier I cannot read letters, bills or prescription labels. My wife reads all my post to me and fills in forms, including this one. I cannot see faces clearly, so I do not know who is at the door, and I cannot read the numbers on the phone.”

Why it is stronger: the question asks you to answer as if using your normal aids. Saying what you still cannot do with them is the key.

Question 35: eating

Weaker: (left blank)

Stronger: “I cannot see what is on my plate, so my wife tells me where things are and cuts my meat. I have knocked over hot drinks several times, so she pours them and puts them where I can find them.”

Why it is stronger: the form includes identifying food on your plate. People with sight loss often skip this question because they think it is about swallowing or appetite.

Putting it into your own words

To write your own answers, start with a record rather than the form. For a few days, jot down what you needed help with or found hard, from getting up to getting up the next morning — including the night. Then go through the form with the record beside you, one question at a time, using the five parts above. If you run out of room, use the “anything else” box after each question, question 46, or the extra page at question 63.

A few more pages that may help:

• How to fill in the AA1 — the whole form, what to send and where.
• What not to write on the form — phrases that undersell your needs, and what to say instead.
• Common mistakes — the slips that lead to a refusal or the lower rate.
• What counts as needing help.

If you would like a hand with it

We are a private company, Virix Ltd, not part of any government department. We fill in the AA1 with you over the telephone, in your own words, then print it and post it to you to check and sign. It costs £149, once. If the claim is refused, we help you ask for the decision to be looked at again at no extra cost, and if the answer is still no, we refund the full £149. Or you can choose to pay £249 only if the claim is awarded. You do not need us: the claim is free, you can fill in the form yourself, and Age UK and Citizens Advice help at no charge where they have capacity. How the options compare.