The day and night test
There are no points in Attendance Allowance and no twelve-activity assessment. The whole rate decision turns on one question, asked twice: do you need help or supervision during the day, and do you need help or supervision during the night? The answers place you on the lower rate, the higher rate, or neither.
The two tests
| Test | What it asks | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Day test | Do you frequently need help with personal care, or constant supervision to stay safe, during the day? | Help washing, dressing, eating, or using the toilet; someone staying close because you might fall or become confused. |
| Night test | Do you need supervision at night, or help that is needed more than once, or for a prolonged period, at night? | Help getting to the toilet at night; someone watching over you through the night because you wander or are unsafe alone. |
How the tests combine
| Your position | Rate |
|---|---|
| Day test met, night test not met | Lower rate — £76.70 a week |
| Night test met, day test not met | Lower rate — £76.70 a week |
| Both tests met | Higher rate — £114.60 a week |
| Neither test met | No award |
| Medical professional says you are nearing the end of life | Higher rate — £114.60 a week, under the special rules |
"Help you need, not help you get"
The most important sentence on this page is the one GOV.UK builds the whole benefit around: the claim is about the help you need. If you struggle alone through the night because nobody is there, that need still counts. If you manage a task only with great difficulty, slowly, or unsafely, that counts as needing help even if you technically complete it. And supervision counts even when nothing goes wrong on a given night — the question is whether someone needs to be there in case it does. Describing a bad day honestly, rather than a good day, is the right way to complete the form: the DWP is judging the level of need, and a good-day description understates it.
Supervision to stay safe
Supervision is not company and it is not housework. It is someone being present to prevent harm — to you or to someone else. The classic cases are falls, wandering, leaving cookers or taps running, and episodes of confusion or distress where intervention is needed. If supervision is needed only occasionally, it may still meet the test if it is frequent in the sense the DWP applies; if it is needed constantly through the day, that is the stronger form of the day test. When in doubt, describe the risk and how often it arises, in concrete terms, rather than using general words like "sometimes" or "often" without examples.