Attendance Allowance is a tax-free weekly payment for people of State Pension age who need help with personal care or supervision. It is not means-tested. From April 2026 it pays £76.70 a week at the lower rate or £114.60 a week at the higher rate. Many families use it to fund regular home care visits.
Two rates, one test
Attendance Allowance is paid at two rates. Which one your family member qualifies for depends on whether they need help during the day, at night, or both.
| Rate | Weekly amount (from April 2026) | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Lower rate | £76.70 | Help needed during the day or at night |
| Higher rate | £114.60 | Help needed during the day and at night, or terminally ill |
These figures took effect on 7 April 2026 as part of the annual DWP uprating (a 3.8% increase on 2025/26 rates). They stay in place until April 2027.
The test isn’t whether help is being received. It’s whether help is genuinely needed because of a physical or mental disability or condition. People often qualify even though no one is currently providing the help, because they’re managing alone in ways that aren’t safe or sustainable.
Who qualifies
To claim Attendance Allowance, your family member must:
- Be over State Pension age
- Have a physical or mental disability or condition (this includes long-term illness, frailty, sensory impairment, dementia, and many other things)
- Have needed help for at least six months (this rule doesn’t apply if they’re terminally ill)
- Be ordinarily resident in Great Britain (Scotland uses a different benefit, Pension Age Disability Payment, with the same rates)
It isn’t means-tested. Savings, income, pension, property, and other benefits don’t affect eligibility. Whether your family member has £200 in the bank or £200,000, they qualify on care needs alone.
What “needing help” looks like
The application asks about a long list of daily activities. The test is whether your family member needs help with any of these because of their condition, not whether they currently get the help. Activities the form asks about include:
- Getting in and out of bed
- Washing, bathing, showering
- Using the toilet
- Continence
- Dressing
- Eating and drinking
- Taking medication
- Moving around safely
- Reaching things
- Communicating
- Coping at night (getting up, anxiety, disorientation, supervision)
- Staying safe (preventing falls, leaving the cooker on, wandering)
For dementia in particular, supervision counts. If your family member needs someone there for safety, that’s a care need even if no physical help is involved on a given day.
How families use it
There are no restrictions on what Attendance Allowance can be spent on. It’s not earmarked for care. It’s recognition that having a long-term condition costs money, and the recipient decides how to use it.
In practice, many families we work with use it to fund regular home care visits. At our standard rate of £31 per hour:
| Attendance Allowance rate | Hours of care it covers per week (at £31/hr) |
|---|---|
| £76.70 (lower) | About 2.5 hours |
| £114.60 (higher) | About 3.7 hours |
Three or four hours a week of consistent, planned care can transform daily life. A morning visit to help with washing, dressing and breakfast. A medication-prompt visit. A late-afternoon companionship visit. A welfare check.
It also stacks with other support. Many of our clients use Attendance Allowance alongside savings, family contributions, and (where eligible) council funding. The page on council-funded home care explains how the council assessment works.
How to apply
The application is called the AA1 form. You can:
- Download it from GOV.UK
- Call the Attendance Allowance helpline on 0800 731 0122 (free)
- Pick up a paper copy from a Citizens Advice or Age UK office
The form is long. It asks detailed questions about exactly what help is needed, how often, and what happens if no one is there. The detail matters. Vague answers like “she needs some help in the morning” tend to under-state the need. Specific answers like “she needs prompting to take her medication or she forgets; she cannot manage the buttons on her cardigan because of her arthritis; she needs someone within earshot at night because she gets up to the bathroom and is unsteady” give the decision-maker the information they need.
The decision usually comes back within a few weeks, sometimes longer. If it’s refused, you can ask for the decision to be looked at again (called a Mandatory Reconsideration) and, if needed, appeal.
Where to get help with the form
The AA1 form is a fair amount of work. The good news is that there’s free help available. Local Age UK branches, Citizens Advice, and many community charities will sit with you and help fill it in. Their experience with what to write makes a real difference to the outcome.
Age UK Nottinghamshire, Age UK Lincoln & South Lincolnshire, and your local Citizens Advice in Newark, Grantham, Bingham and surrounding areas all offer this support. We’re happy to point you to the nearest one.
What to do next
If you’d like to talk through how Attendance Allowance could fit alongside paid care, call 01636 646915. We can show you what a few hours a week of regular care looks like for the rate your family member qualifies for. If you’re not sure whether to apply, the GOV.UK website has a clear “Check your eligibility” tool and Age UK runs a benefits checker.
