What activities count as providing 35hrs care for Carer’s Allowance?

Where the disabled person and the carer don’t live together, apart from the usual things like taking the person to health appointments but these things alone don’t amount to 35hrs per week, can the carer being available at the end of the phone count as providing care?

Do you have access to a Disability Rights Handbook? All neatly covered at page 45 but the short answer is “yes, that’s fine”. However, there is a difference between “available at the end of a phone” and something amounting to attention in relation to care. AA case law going back to at least 1978 (although somewhere I have a 1975 one) confirms that this is fine. There is a difference though between passively sitting at the end of a phone waiting for “something” to happen and actively having to ring someone on a regular basis in order to prompt them to action; prevent a problem etc.

A couple of examples:

- had a recent client who if there was an issue overnight was able to speed dial their offspring who lived downstairs in a different flat. They could communicate no more than the name of the person they were calling at best but that was sufficient for the person to awaken; know there was an issue and visit.
- a relative of mine with Vascular Dementia gets AA @ LR. They are taken to regular medical appointments by another relative who gets CA. The visits themselves may take up less time than the phone calls to awaken the person; remind them they have an appointment; prompt them to breakfast; shower; medicate and dress etc. Zero issue with those multiple calls counting as attention in connection with those bodily functions. More of an issue if it was a more informal “I’m just checking you’re okay” with no specific basis for doing so.