Attendance Allowance check → Filling in the form: what actually happens

Filling in the form: what actually happens

Forty pages, what they ask for, what to have to hand, and where people lose claims that should have been straightforward.

What the form is

It is a long paper form that arrives in the post, or can be filled in online. Most of it is free text: the same question about an ordinary day, asked in a dozen different ways. There is no tick-box shortcut and no score to see.

What to have to hand

• National Insurance number.
• The name and address of the GP surgery, and of any consultant or clinic seen recently.
• A list of medicines.
• Bank account details for payment.
• Dates, roughly, of when things became difficult.

You do not need a doctor's letter, a diagnosis on paper, or a social worker's report. Supporting evidence helps, but the claim stands or falls on how the day is described.

Where claims are lost

1. Answering as though it is a good day. The form is scored on what is needed most of the time, including the bad days.
2. Understating for pride. “I manage” is true and also, on this form, fatal.
3. Describing walking. There is no mobility part to this benefit.
4. Leaving the night blank. Night-time need is the difference between the two rates.
5. Running out of patience by page twenty. The later sections are where most of the scoring detail sits.

How long it takes

Filling it in properly takes a couple of hours, usually spread over a few sittings. The DWP typically takes six to eight weeks to decide, and pays from the date the form arrived.

If it is refused

You can ask for the decision to be looked at again — a mandatory reconsideration — within a month, and then appeal to a tribunal. A great many refusals are overturned on appeal. If we filled the form in and the claim is refused, we refund our £349 in full.

Doing it yourself

Plenty of people do, and it is free. Ring the DWP on 0800 731 0122 for a form, or ask Age UK or Citizens Advice to help with it. Waiting lists for that help vary by area.