The special rules are the benefits system with its bureaucracy switched off. Where a doctor or specialist nurse judges that someone may be nearing the end of life - the operative wording: not expected to live longer than another 12 months - an Attendance Allowance claim changes character completely: no six-month qualifying period, no care questions to answer, the higher rate automatically, and a decision made at speed on a single medical form the clinician sends. This page is the complete, gentle manual: who the rules are for, how the SR1 works, the privacy promise written into the process, Scotland's even wider version - and the permission many families need to hear first: using this route is not giving up. It is the system doing, for once, exactly what it should.
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Families hesitate at this door for honourable reasons - claiming feels like signing something no one wants signed. So three truths before any mechanics. Using the special rules changes nothing medical: no treatment, referral or prognosis is altered by a benefits route. The 12-month wording is a threshold for eligibility, not a prediction - clinicians apply it to people who may live considerably longer, and many do; nobody is held to it. And the money is for living: care, comfort, taxis, heating, help - the things the remaining time actually needs. If the clinical team thinks the route applies, taking it is practical love, not surrender.
What the special rules actually change
- No qualifying period. The ordinary six-months-of-needs rule vanishes; entitlement can begin at once.
- No care questions. The form's long middle - questions 21 to 46, the days and nights - is skipped entirely. Nobody must inventory their decline.
- The higher rate, automatically. £114.60 a week - £5,959.20 a year - without any rate assessment.
- Speed by design. These claims are prioritised; the SR1 carries the medical case so no GP letters, no evidence bundles, no ordinary timeline.
Everything else this site teaches - diaries, evidence, form technique - is happily unnecessary here. The route is one phone call and two forms, one of which a clinician completes.
The SR1: what it is and how it moves
The SR1 is the medical evidence form for special rules claims, completed by a doctor or specialist nurse - GP, consultant, palliative team or clinical nurse specialist can all do it. It is free (no fee may be charged), and the clinician can send it directly to the DWP, electronically or by post, without the family ever handling it. Two practical notes. First, ASK - clinicians complete SR1s routinely and expect the request; the palliative or specialist nurse is often the smoothest route. Second, the claim form itself says not to wait: "If you have not got your SR1 form... send the claim form anyway." Ring, claim, and let the SR1 follow - the claim date is protected from the call, and the pieces join up behind the scenes.
How to claim, step by step
- Ring 0800 731 0122 (or apply online) and say at the outset: this is a claim under the special rules. In Northern Ireland: 0800 587 0912.
- Complete the short parts of the AA1 - identity, question 1's special rules tick, the practicalities. A family member can do all of it, and question 15 covers signing on someone's behalf.
- Ask the clinical team for the SR1 - and send the claim without waiting for it.
- That is the whole process. No care questions, no assessment, no chasing. Payment, when awarded, is at the higher rate from the claim's start.
The privacy promise: claiming FOR someone who does not know
The commonest agony in this territory: a family claiming for a parent or spouse who does not know the prognosis, or knows and cannot bear it spoken. The system anticipated this with a promise printed in the claim form's own notes: when a claim is made on someone's behalf under the special rules, the DWP's letters never mention end of life. Award letters read as ordinary Attendance Allowance correspondence; nothing arriving through the letterbox breaks the family's chosen silence. Combined with question 15's signing routes, this means the entire claim can be arranged around a person - lovingly, lawfully - without a single conversation they have not chosen to have.
Scotland: BASRiS, and a deliberately wider door
Scotland's Pension Age Disability Payment runs the same fast track with one profound difference: no 12-month expectation at all. The Scottish form is BASRiS (Benefits Assessment under Special Rules in Scotland), completed by a doctor or nurse, and the test is simply clinical judgement that the progressive condition may cause death - however far ahead. SR1s and older DS1500s are accepted too. Decisions arrive in about 7 working days, and payment runs weekly in advance. For Scottish families this widens who can use the route considerably - the MND guide's ask-the-nurse advice applies doubly: raise BASRiS with the clinical team early, because Scotland built the door to be walked through sooner.
Around the award: the sensible add-ons
The special rules award opens the same doors as any other. The Pension Credit conversation belongs in the same week (the severe disability addition follows the usual conditions, and PC backdates only three months). The carer's position deserves its ten minutes - with the usual household arithmetic before anyone claims. And where the household's circumstances later change - a long hospital stay or a hospice move - the ordinary payment rules apply, with hospices generally treated kindly; ring the helpline with dates rather than guessing. None of this is homework for today; it is a list for whichever calm afternoon comes.
If the clinicians say the rules do not apply yet
Sometimes the honest clinical answer is not yet - the condition is grave but the wording is not met. That is not a refusal of help: the ordinary claim remains open, needs-based and prompt, and everything this site teaches serves it - the protected claim date, the honest form, the carer's page. Claims made under the ordinary rules can convert later: if the picture changes, ask the team again, send the SR1 when it comes, and the higher rate follows. The route's door stays open the whole way along - the only mistake is standing outside it unclaimed on either set of rules.
What a claim looks like from the kitchen table
Stripped of process language, a real special rules week runs like this. Monday: the palliative nurse confirms the SR1 applies and says she will send it herself. Tuesday morning: a daughter rings 0800 731 0122, says "special rules claim", and gives the basic details; the short form arrives, is completed in twenty minutes - identity, bank details, question 1 ticked, signature via question 15 - and goes back the same week. No diary, no evidence hunt, no care-questions evening. The award letter that follows reads like any Attendance Allowance letter, pays the higher rate from the claim date, and the household's energy stays where it belonged all along. That ordinariness is the design; the route is meant to be almost nothing to operate.
Money questions families ask quietly
Three, answered plainly. Is it means-tested or taxed? No and no - the £114.60 arrives whole regardless of savings or income. What happens to the award if the person outlives the wording? Nothing automatic - awards under the special rules run their course, and the DWP's machinery handles any eventual review without drama; nobody claws anything back for surviving. And after a death, what then? Payment stops from the death, the household notifies the DWP as part of the Tell Us Once process, and nothing about having used the special rules complicates the estate - it was simply the right benefit, claimed the right way, when it mattered.
Who to lean on this week
Nobody should operate even this short route alone, and the ecosystem around it is genuinely good: Macmillan and Marie Curie's benefits advisers handle special rules claims daily; hospice social workers treat the paperwork as part of the care; MND, cancer and heart failure specialist nurses know the SR1's workings cold; and the wider help map lists the general routes. One phone call to whichever of these already knows your family typically produces the whole claim - forms, SR1 request and follow-up - within days. Asking is not adding a burden to the clinical team; it is using a service they consider theirs to give.
Speed, dignity, privacy, the higher rate: four promises in one route, kept better than most of the benefits system manages anywhere else. If the wording may apply to someone you love, make the call today - and let the quietest corner of this system do its best work.
Common questions
What are the Attendance Allowance special rules?
The fast track for people a clinician judges may be nearing the end of life (not expected to live longer than another 12 months): no qualifying period, no care questions, the higher rate automatically, and a prioritised decision on an SR1 form the doctor or nurse provides.
What is an SR1 form?
The medical evidence form for special rules claims - completed free by a doctor or specialist nurse and sent by them directly to the DWP. The claim itself should be sent without waiting for it; the form says so.
Does claiming under the special rules mean giving up?
No - it changes nothing medical, the 12-month wording is an eligibility threshold rather than a prediction, and many people outlive it. The route exists so the remaining time is better funded; using it is practicality, not surrender.
Will the DWP letters mention end of life?
Not when the claim is made on someone's behalf - the form's own notes promise the letters never mention it. Families protecting a loved one from the prognosis can claim without the post breaking their silence.
How much is Attendance Allowance under the special rules?
The higher rate automatically: £114.60 a week, £5,959.20 a year, tax-free and without any means test - from the claim's start, which is why the phone call should happen today.
How do the special rules work in Scotland?
Through BASRiS under Pension Age Disability Payment - with no 12-month limit at all: clinical judgement that a progressive condition may cause death suffices. Decisions in about 7 working days, payment weekly in advance; SR1s are accepted too.
What if the doctors say the special rules do not apply yet?
Claim under the ordinary rules now - needs-based, with the date protected - and ask again if the picture changes. An SR1 arriving later converts the claim; the higher rate follows it.
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