You need to show that your disability means that you require frequent attention throughout the day in connection with your bodily functions.This is for people who, because of their disability, cannot do personal things for themselves. Your disability does not need to have a specific medical diagnosis, the important thing is your need for care or help from someone else.
You do not need to be actually getting the help now, what counts is whether you need it.
In Packer's case (1981) Lord Denning said-
Bodily functions include breathing, hearing, seeing, eating, drinking , walking, sitting, sleeping, getting in or out of bed, dressing, undressing, eliminating waste products - and the like - all of which an ordinary person - who is not suffering from any disability - does for himself. But they do not include cooking, shopping or any of the other things which a wife or daughter does as part of her domestic duties; or generally which one of the household normally does for the rest of the family......ordinary domestic duties such as shopping, cooking meals, making tea or coffee, laying the table or the tray, carrying it into the room, making the bed or filling the hot water bottle, do not qualify as 'attention .... in connection with (the) bodily functions of the disabled person. But those duties that are out of the ordinary - doing for the disabled person what a normal person would do for himself - such as cutting up food, lifting the cup to the mouth, helping to dress and undress or at the toilet - all do qualify as 'attention ... in connection with (the) bodily functions' of the disabled person.
(emphasis added)
This ruling has set the broad definition for bodily functions
ever since.
The help that you need must also involve some personal contact and be carried out in your presence.This does not include help with domestic tasks like cleaning, cooking or shopping.
Bodily functions are now defined as-
eating and drinking,
walking,
getting in or out of bed,
washing
dressing,
breathing,
bathing,
sleeping,
going to the toilet,
shaving.
Changing bedding as a result of your incontinence also counts as attention in connection with your bodily functions
If you are deaf, using a third person to help you and your carer to communicate also counts. The RNID factsheet states-
"You will be classed as 100% disabled due to blindness if your sight
loss is such that you are "unable to perform work for which eyesight
is essential". People who are registered blind, or whose sight loss is
such that they could be registered blind, are treated as 100% disabled.
You will be treated as 80% disabled from deafness if your level of hearing
loss is at least 87dB in both ears at frequencies 1, 2 and 3 kHz taking into
account a hearing aid if you usually use one."
Frequent means several times, not just once or twice.
Throughout the day means during all parts of the day and not just during one or two parts of the day. If you need help with more than one task then these can be taken together. For example, you may need help with getting up and dressing, with cutting up your food and with going to the toilet- this would mean that you need frequent help throughout the day.
There has been much debate over the meaning of attention, at its simplest attention means help or assistance with personal things that a "healthy" person would be able to do for themselves.
This help has been recognised as involving 'care, consideration and vigilance' and to involve personal contact.
If your disability directly impairs one bodily function then help with tasks requiring that function also counts. If you are blind, for example, then seeing is the bodily function that is directly affected. The help you need to read letters or guidance when walking will therefore count as 'attention in connection with your bodily functions'.
In the much quoted Mallinson Case (House of Lords 1994) Lord Woolf stated that
The process of guiding has the active and the close, caring, personal qualities referred to in the authorities which I have cited. The position is different from that which would exist in the case of, for example, a mother coming out to watch her child cross the road. She would, no doubt, be in a position to intervene if there was a situation of danger but until she did intervene she would be supervising, not attending to, her child. No doubt there will be cases which are borderline as to whether they are supervision or attention. If, however, the situation is one where,as here, the function cannot take place without assistance, that assistance is likely to constitute attention.
(emphasis added)
The DWP Decision Makers' Guide states ( para 61103)
Attention will generally be given by physical contact. It may also be given by means of the spoken word in circumstances such as -
1. guiding a blind person in unfamiliar surroundings will involve giving oral directions.
2. reading personal correspondence to a person with a visual handicap.
3. encouraging a person with a mental disability to eat, wash, dress or get out of bed where he would not otherwise do so.
This list is not exhaustive.
(emphasis added)
Soothing a mentally ill person back to sleep also counts as attention.
It would appear that what matters is whether or not your disability prevents you from doing personal things for yourself- any assistance you need to do those things counts as attention.
In the Mallinson case Lord Woolf pointed to 4 basic questions the DWP should ask when considering this issue-
" But this usually involves doing no more than looking, as in this case, at the claimant's account of what he can and cannot do together with the relevant medical report and asking four simple questions:
(1) Has the claimant a serious disability?
(2) If so, what bodily functions does it impair?
(3) Does he reasonably require attention in connection with those functions?
(4) Is that attention frequent?"
