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.
Bodily Functions
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-
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 2001 RNID factsheet states-
" If you are deaf and need help with communication, you should be able to get the DLA care component. Most deaf people qualify because they need 'attention . . . in connection with' their 'bodily functions'. Hearing and speech both count as 'bodily functions'. If you need support to communicate with other people this counts as 'attention'. Help with communication only counts as attention if it has to be provided by another person. If, however, you communicate with the use of special equipment, such as a hearing aid or a textphone, this does not count as attention. The following types of assistance are examples of what can count as attention: - A sign-language interpreter so that you can communicate with people who do not sign. - Someone helping you to understand spoken words, announcements or television programmes. - Someone alerting you to important sounds such as doorbells, alarms, or approaching traffic. - Someone helping you to understand things that are written down if British Sign Language is your first language and you find written English difficult to understand. It does not matter if you do not currently get support to communicate. It is not the help you actually get, but the help you 'reasonably require' that counts. It is reasonable for a deaf person to require help with communication in a range of situations, such as going to work, school or college, visiting the doctor, using public transport, at the shops, or undertaking social and leisure activities."
Frequent means several times, not just once or twice. The Decision Makers' Guide states- "The ordinary defiition of frequent is "occurring often or in close succession". Whether attention is given frequently depends on the lenght of time which passes between each spell of attention."
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.
Attention
There has been much debate over the meaning of attention, at its simplest attention meanshelp 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 only where there is physical presence. Examples of attention by means of the spoken word include -
guiding a blind person in unfamiliar surroundings will involve giving oral directions
reading personal correspondence to a person with a visual handicap
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."
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:
Has the claimant a serious disability?
If so, what bodily functions does it impair?
Does he reasonably require attention in connection with those functions?
Is that attention frequent?"
