The AA1 form, section by section

The AA1 (current version 11/25) is 32 pages, but it is not 32 pages of hard questions - it is a handful of ideas repeated carefully. Here is the whole form, in the order it arrives, with what each part is really asking for.

Question 1: the special rules gate

If you are claiming under the special rules for people nearing the end of life, tick it, skip the care questions (21 to 46), and ask your doctor or specialist for an SR1 form. Send the claim form without waiting for the SR1 - it can follow.

Questions 2 to 15: who you are

Personal details, residence, time abroad, and question 15 for the many forms filled in by someone else: appointees, Power of Attorney holders, or a relative asking to be made an appointee. If that is you, sign the consent at question 20 and the declaration at 64, and enclose your authority documents where asked.

Questions 16 to 20: your conditions and your people

• Q16 is the conditions table: each illness, how long, medicines and doses. The form's own tip is worth taking: send a printed prescription list and you do not need to write out your medicines at all.
• Q17 and 18: professionals you have seen in the last year, and who helps you day to day.
• Q19 and 20: your GP, and your signed consent for the DWP to contact them. The form notes the GP only gives medical facts - they do not decide the claim.

Questions 21 to 28: the background evidence

Reports you already hold, surgery waiting lists, tests, your home layout (where the toilet is, where you sleep), your aids and adaptations, and question 28: the date your care needs started. That date anchors the 6-month rule, so think back honestly - needs usually start well before diagnosis letters do.

Questions 29 to 41: your days

This is the heart of the form. Bed, toilet, washing, dressing, moving about indoors, falls, eating, medicines, communication, hobbies, and supervision - each with tick-boxes in the form's own three voices: I have difficulty..., I need help..., and I have difficulty concentrating or motivating myself and need encouraging.... Most lines ask "How often each day?" - answer with real numbers, not "sometimes".

Questions 42 to 45: your nights

Night means after the household has closed down. The form asks, line by line: how many times a night (1, 2, 3+) and how many minutes each time - turning in bed, toilet, incontinence, medicines - then whether someone needs to be awake watching over you, how many times, and for how long. As we explain in the rates guide, these boxes are where the higher rate lives, and they are the least witnessed part of anyone's life. Give them numbers.

Questions 46 to 54: wrap-up and payment

Anything else about your care needs (Q46), current or recent hospital and care home stays (Q47-48), War Pension or Industrial Injuries Constant Attendance Allowance (Q49), and your bank details (Q50-54).

Questions 55 to 62: the statement from someone who knows you

Optional, and quietly powerful: the person most involved in your care writes, in their own words, how often they see you, what your conditions are and how they affect you. A short, honest statement from a son, daughter or neighbour corroborates everything you have said. Ask them to describe a real week, not to write a reference.

Questions 63 to 65: extra information, declaration, enclosures

Q63 is the overflow space for everything that did not fit - conditions interacting, variability, the shape of a whole day. Q64 is your signed declaration (and a reminder to check you signed Q20 too). Q65 lists what you are enclosing: copies only, because nothing is returned.

The form's own ground rules, worth taking literally

• "Usually means most of the time."
• Help means "physical help, guidance or encouragement".
• "It is important that you tell us about the difficulty you have or the help you need, whether you get the help or not."

The three details most forms leave blank

Read a hundred completed AA1s and the same three gaps appear again and again - each one worth real weight to a decision maker:

Question 27 asks what difficulty you have using your aids. Most people list the grab rail and the bath board and move on. The table has a third column: what difficulty do you have using them? A stairlift you cannot use safely when dizzy, a walking frame that cannot help you off the floor after a fall, a dosette box someone else has to fill - the difficulty with the aid is often stronger evidence than the aid itself.

Question 34 wants numbers, not adjectives. How many falls or stumbles in the last month? The last year? When was the last one? Were you hurt? Can you get up alone? Have you been referred to a Falls Clinic? "I fall sometimes" gives the decision maker nothing to weigh; "four falls in the last month, last Tuesday the most recent, I cannot get up without my son" decides questions.

The night lines at question 42 ask twice. For every ticked night need the form wants how many times a night AND how many minutes each time. Night help must be "prolonged or repeated" to count in law, so those minutes are the difference between the two rates - about £1,970 a year, as our higher or lower rate guide shows.

What a strong answer actually looks like

Every care question has the same anatomy, and a strong answer works with it rather than against it:

• Tick the form's own lines. The AA1 offers its wording - "I need help getting out of bed", "I have difficulty concentrating or motivating myself and need encouraging". Tick what is true, including the encouragement lines: prompting is help.
• Fill in the frequency box. "How often each day?" wants a number or "every day", not a shrug.
• Then tell the story in 3 to 6 plain sentences: what happens, what help is needed, what happens without it, and what the worst days look like.

For washing, that might read: "I cannot lift my right arm above shoulder height, so I cannot wash my hair or back. My wife washes them for me every morning. When she is away I do not bathe, because I slipped getting out of the bath in March. Twice a week the pain is bad enough that she helps me dry and dress as well." Four sentences: difficulty, help, consequence, variation. Nothing invented, nothing minimised - a week with the care needs diary beforehand gives you these sentences ready-made.

Question 39: the life you have given up still counts

This is the question people misread as padding. It asks about hobbies, interests, social and religious activities - in two tables, at home and away from home - and it explicitly includes things you WOULD like to do and the help you WOULD need. Church you stopped attending because you cannot manage the steps and fear the walk; the allotment you gave up; the bowls club you left when driving stopped being possible. Name the activity, the help that would make it possible, and how often you would do it. An award is about the help you reasonably require to live a life, not just to survive a day - this question is where that life goes on record.

Questions 40 and 44: supervision, and the honest answer to "how long?"

Question 40 lists the reasons someone might need an eye kept on them by day: danger to yourself or others, not being aware of common dangers, risk of neglecting yourself, risk of self-harm, wandering, confusion, fits or blackouts, distressing voices or thoughts. Tick what applies, then answer its bluntest line: "How long can you be safely left for at a time?" Resist the brave answer. If your daughter will not leave you for more than an hour because of what happened last time, the honest answer is "about an hour" - with what happened last time in the story box.

Question 44 is the night version, and the law sets its bar precisely: someone must need to be awake to watch over you, for a prolonged period or at frequent intervals. A husband who wakes at every sound because you have fallen on the way to the bathroom before is not "just being caring" - he is meeting the legal test for night supervision, in minutes the form asks you to count. The full picture is in our falls and supervision guide.

The medication shortcut at question 16

The medicines table asks for every medicine, dose and frequency - and then the form quietly hands you a shortcut: "If you send in your prescription list you do not need to tell us about your medicines and dosage." Ask the pharmacy for a repeat list, enclose it, write "see attached prescription list" in the box. Save your energy for what no pharmacy can print: what the medicines do to you. Drowsiness by mid-morning, the diuretic that dictates where you can go, drops someone else must put in - side effects and help with treatment belong at question 36, and they are evidence, not complaints. What your GP's records say about all this matters too - the GP letter topics tool shows what is worth having on paper.

Question 63: how to use the overflow well

Extra information is not a bin for everything that did not fit - it is the one place the form lets you describe the whole, rather than the parts. Use it for what the earlier questions fragment: how conditions interact ("the arthritis means I grip the rail badly, which is why the dizziness causes falls"), how a full day accumulates ("by evening I have nothing left, so most of the night needs happen then"), and any continuation of questions 10, 16, 17, 18, 27 or 39. If you add loose sheets, put your name and National Insurance number on every one. Do not repeat earlier answers - a decision maker reads repetition as emphasis running out of facts.

Before it goes in the envelope

The form's own checklist, plus the two additions we would make:

• Question 20 consent - signed, or the DWP may be unable to check with your GP.
• Question 64 declaration - signed.
• GP details (19), specialists (17), who helps you (18), the date needs began (28).
• Question 65 - list every enclosure. Copies only; nothing is returned.
• Our additions: photocopy the completed form for yourself, and post it to Freepost DWP Attendance Allowance - or hand the claim in the way that protected your date, as covered in how to claim.

Then the waiting starts - a text or letter within about 3 weeks, decision usually made from the papers alone. What that period looks like, and when to chase, is in our decision time guide.

Common questions