It is not about a diagnosis

When claiming Personal Independence Payments (PIP) - it is not about having a diagnosis but how that health issue affects your ability to carry out daily living tasks or moving around.

The eligibility criteria for PIP are:

• you’re 16 or over

• you have a long-term physical or mental health condition or disability

• you have difficulty doing certain everyday tasks or getting around

• you expect the difficulties to last for at least 12 months from when they started
  

You also usually need to be under State Pension age to make a new PIP claim.

To get PIP you must experience difficulty with tasks most of the time. This means that you expect to have difficulty more than half of the days over a 12-month period.

PIP is divided into 2 parts, Living and Mobility. Each have 2 rates: standard and enhanced depending on your ability to perform daily living tasks or move around. You can get only one or both.

Daily living part

You might get the daily living part of PIP if you need help with:

• preparing food

• eating and drinking

• managing your medicines or treatments

• washing and bathing

• using the toilet

• dressing and undressing

• reading

• managing your money

• socialising and being around other people

• talking, listening and understanding

Mobility part

You might get the mobility part of PIP if you need help with:

• working out a route and following it

• physically moving around

• leaving your home

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will assess how difficult you find daily living and mobility tasks. For each task they’ll look at:

• whether you can do it safely

• how long it takes you

• whether you need help to do it, from a person or using extra equipment

To support your claim you should get as much medical information as you can especially Occupational Health Reports or Consultant Reports which show any adaptations you use and how your daily life is impacted by your condition.

To make a new claim, you will need to call the DWP on 0800 917 2222 and you will be asked some basic questions. You will need to have the following information for the call:

• your contact details, for example telephone number

• your date of birth

• your National Insurance number, if you have one (you can find this on letters about tax, pensions and benefits)

• your bank or building society account number and sort code

• your doctor or health worker’s name, address and telephone number

• dates and addresses for any time you’ve spent in a care home or hospital

• dates for any time you spent abroad for more than 4 weeks at a time, and the countries you visited

• information about any money or support you or a close family member (husband, wife, civil partner or dependent parent) get from an EEA country or Switzerland

You will then be sent a paper form for you to complete. (In some postcode areas, you can make an online claim, to check if you can, go to Check if you're eligible for PIP - Apply for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). This will also confirm if you are eligible. The claim process can take many weeks, you may be called in for an assessment. If you are successful your claim will be backdated from the date you started your claim. If you are unsuccessful you have the right to complete a Mandatory Reconsideration asking them to relook at their decision and why you think it is wrong. You should provide any additional information you have not previously supplied. This must be done within 1 month of the date on your decision letter.

If your claim is still not successful you can then appeal their decision again within 1 month from the decision date shown on their decision letter.

If you are unsure how to complete the form or challenge a decision you have received, seek help from an advice agency.