How long does Attendance Allowance last - and will it be reviewed?

Attendance Allowance is awarded for either a fixed period or an indefinite one, and your decision letter tells you which you have. That single sentence answers most of the worry behind this question - there is no PIP-style machine of scheduled reassessments waiting for you, no anniversary examination, and for many people no end date at all. What there is instead: a renewal rhythm for fixed-period awards, a duty to report real changes, and - in Scotland - a review system that tells you its dates in advance. This guide walks through each, so the brown envelopes that do arrive are expected ones.

Two kinds of award letter

When the decision is made, the letter states the rate - £76.70 or £114.60 a week - and the shape of the award. A fixed-period award runs to a stated end date; the DWP uses these where a condition might realistically change. An indefinite award has no end date, and is the natural outcome for the long-term conditions that dominate claims at this age. Neither is a judgment on how ill you are - the same condition can honestly produce either, depending on how the decision maker reads its likely course. File the letter where you can find it: the type of award, the rate and the dates on it are the answers to almost every future question in this guide, and to the Pension Credit conversation the award should trigger the same week.

Fixed-period awards: how renewal actually works

A fixed end date is not a cliff edge, because the system is built to renew in good time:

• The invitation comes to you. Expect a renewal letter about 4 months before the award is due to end - you do not have to watch the calendar alone.
• The law opens a 6-month window. Under regulation 13C of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987, a further claim can be made during the 6 months immediately before the existing award expires.
• No gap, no lost weeks. A renewal made in that window is treated as claimed from the day after the old award ends - the money runs on seamlessly if the renewal succeeds.

The renewal form deserves the same care as the first claim - it is a fresh look, not a rubber stamp. Answer it as you are NOW, not as you were: needs usually grow between awards, and a renewal is a natural moment for a lower rate to become the higher one if nights have entered the picture. A fortnight of the Care Needs Diary before you fill it in puts current, dated evidence behind every answer.

Indefinite awards: what "no end date" really means

An indefinite award means there is no fixed date for the DWP to review your claim - not that the award is untouchable. Two things can still change it: you reporting a change (the duty below), or information reaching the DWP that prompts a fresh look. In practice, for a person whose condition follows its expected course and who reports honestly, an indefinite award simply continues - which is exactly what it was designed to do for conditions that are not going to improve. What it should never become is a reason to stop keeping records: the household that still has its copy of the original form and an occasional diary week can answer any future question in an afternoon.

The changes you must report - and the one people forget

The declaration you signed on the form commits you to reporting changes on 0800 731 0122, and gov.uk states the stakes plainly: if your circumstances change, you could get a different rate. The list is short:

• Your condition gets worse - which can raise the rate (next section).
• Your condition genuinely improves - report it; honesty here protects you, and the declaration carries penalties for leaving it unsaid.
• Hospital stays and care home moves - the one people forget. Payment pauses after 28 days in hospital or council-funded care, and restarts on discharge, with the who-pays rules for care homes in their own guide. Report the admission AND the discharge.
• Moving to Scotland - AA stops 13 weeks after the move and Pension Age Disability Payment takes over.

Needs increased? Ask for the award to be looked at again

A lower-rate award is not a life sentence. If the nights have filled in since the original decision - repeated help, someone staying awake over you - report the change and ask for the award to be looked at again, making the case in the form's own units: times per night, minutes each time, nights per week, plus a line from whoever gets up with you. One honest caution: a fresh look is a fresh look at the whole award, so this is a step for genuine changes, described accurately - the same rule that governs challenges. Done on real evidence, it is routine, and it is how under-awarded claims get corrected without waiting for any renewal date.

Worried about being called for a reassessment?

The fear behind many review questions is imported from working-age benefits: the summons, the assessment centre, the stranger with a clipboard. Attendance Allowance does not run that machine. Decisions - first claims, renewals, and looks at reported changes - are made from the papers in the normal case, with gov.uk stating an assessment happens only if it is unclear how your condition affects you, exactly as at first decision. The realistic picture of your future post: renewal invitations if your award is fixed-period, ordinary uprating letters each April, and letters responding to changes you yourself reported. Open them, act on them, and nothing in this system is built to ambush you.

Scotland reviews on told dates - a genuinely different design

Pension Age Disability Payment made review anxiety a design problem and solved it with information: Social Security Scotland gives you your first review date when it makes the award, and at the end of each review tells you when the next will be. Indefinite awards exist there too - for needs unlikely to change - and are not reviewed unless you report a change. A review, when it comes, is a form with 28 days to complete and return, possibly with a request for supporting information about day and night care needs, ending in a fresh determination letter. If a review ever reduces an award you disagree with, Scotland's re-determination route with Short-term Assistance keeps the old amount flowing while you challenge - a safety net GB does not offer. Between reviews, the reporting duty is the same as everywhere: tell them as soon as something changes.

The folder that makes every review boring

Every path through this guide ends at the same piece of furniture: a folder. The original form copy, the award letter, each year's uprating letter, hospital dates, a diary week per season. Households that keep it answer renewal forms in an evening, respond to any query by return of post, and never experience the cold-sweat version of a brown envelope. Households that do not, reconstruct years from memory under a deadline. Twenty minutes of filing a year buys the difference - and if you are still at the start of this journey, claim properly first, because a well-made first claim is the easiest award to keep.

The April letter is not a review

One envelope arrives for everyone, every year, and frightens nobody who knows what it is: the uprating letter. Benefit rates change each April - the current £76.70 and £114.60 replaced last year's figures the same way - and the letter simply states your new amount. It asks nothing, reopens nothing and needs no reply; its only job is to be filed with the award letter so your folder always shows the current rate. If a year's letter seems not to have arrived, the current rates are always on gov.uk - and in the annual value calculator, which we keep to the live year's figures.

If a renewal or review goes the wrong way

A renewal decision is a decision like any other - which means the full challenge machinery applies to it: a mandatory reconsideration within one month, then appeal, exactly as for a first refusal, with the evidence habits this site keeps repeating (dated diary weeks, the carer's paragraph, frequencies not adjectives). The one addition worth knowing: because a renewal claim is its own claim, do not let a disappointing renewal sit unchallenged while the deadline runs - the challenge guide applies from the day the letter lands, and the claim-date logic means delay is the one mistake that cannot be repaired later.

Common questions