Claimants have begun receiving a new PIP2 ‘How Your Disability Affects You’ form in the last few days, though there has been no announcement from the DWP about any changes and it is not clear if this is a pilot or a wholesale change.
The new form is longer but actually has fewer questions.
The tick boxes for aids and appliances and for help from another person have gone.
For most activities you are asked, for example:
Does your condition affect you dressing and undressing.
No
Yes
There is then some standard text though the wording varies occasionally according to the activity:
For each difficulty, please tell us:
How often you have this difficulty – tell us about both good days and bad days
What the difficulty is
Why you have it, or how it relates to your condition
Any aids or adaptations you use, or help you get from another person
Any help you feel you need but do not get
Then there are two sample answers, for example:
“About three times a week, I have trouble dressing my upper body because my hands shake too much to do up the buttons on my shirt. I use a button hook to do the buttons on my shirt”
“Most days my partner has to remind me to get dressed during the day”
Most, but not all of the sample answers would lead to an award of points.
The set of questions followed by examples looks remarkably similar to the technique we use in our Benefits and Work PIP guides, though neither the questions nor the sample answers are as detailed.
There is, however, a massive disparity between the size of the sample answers and the size of the box in which to give your own answer, which is a full side of A4 for most activities. The onus seems now to be on the claimant to provide detailed information in a lengthy written format without the benefit of any tick boxes.
Managing your treatments has been split into two separate sections. There are now separate pages for monitoring changes/taking medication and for therapies at home.
Some activities have changed their names: Going out is now Planning and following a journey. Making decisions about money is now Managing money.
Some sections of the form have moved around: section 1 and section 2 seem to have changed places, for example.
We’ll provide more information once we know whether this is a small scale trial or a major change.
But for now, if readers follow our six step system when filling in the narrative parts of the form, they will cover the missing tick boxes and give all the necessary information.
