Has anyone any experience of obtaining this benefit for supervision/
watching over a person suffering from depression who self harms and attempts suicide?

I'm at an appeal on the 28th about this where the claimant hasn't self-harmed (much) or attempted suicide since he met his wife 7 years ago - she is in fact his full time carer (but there anyway is the DWP position). It's a re-hearing on a direction by the Commissioners. Will let you know what they say.

There is good information about how to approach these cases in CPAG's welfare benefits and tax credits handbook 2003/04, p.142-143. Of particular importance is stressing that just because someone isn't in hospital due to suicidal tendencies, that it does not follow that their doctors do not think they are at serious risk. If you can obtain medical evidence from their consultant psychiatrist or community psychiatric nurse, so much the better.

However, from previous experience, I know that it can be difficult to persuade decision makers and tribunals to allow DLA on these grounds - if the person is depressed as well, make sure that issues around the need for frequent attention with bodily functions are also addressed, as this may provide an alternative route to entitlement.

I've made hundreds of successful DLA claims on precisely these grounds. The main points are that medical support, in the form of a letter from a GP, CPN or psychiatrist, is pretty much essential and that the claimant has to give as much detail as possible about how the support they receive, be it from professionals, friends or family, is essential in preventing them acting on their urges to self-harm / attempt suicide.

CDLA/14696/1996, CA/177/1988 & CDLA/3680/1997 are all helpful case law on encouragement, stimulation and cajoling amounting to attention in mental health cases and might be helpful.

In October I won an appeal on one of these cases. Since the need for supervision must be continuous, the key was to demonstrate what would happen if the supervision wasn't there. It helped that my client had discussed her supervision needs with her GP, and that the Police and paramedics had been called out when she had been left unsupervised for a short time and had cut herself again. We won higher rate care component using the GP's evidence, and also written evidence from me in which I listed the steps that my clients family had to take to ensure she was watched over all the time, and quoted things that my client had said to me about her feelings.

Remember that 'continuous' is not the same as 'continual', and I have had clients who have described a situation where they have a high degree of support but still long periods, or even every weekend, where no supervision takes place, and still get a middle care award.