What to do if the impact of your condition has changed since your last PIP assessment – When claiming PIP, you must report specific changes in your health to the DWP. For example, a change could be:
- If your condition or the relevant symptoms have improved or worsened
- If you’ve stopped or started taking any medication
If a change in your situation has impacted your life since the last assessment you need to explain the following in your PIP review:
- What happened to cause the change
- When it happened
- How it made things easier or harder for you (detailing what help, if any, you still need)
What happens after a PIP review form?
How PIP reviews work – You will continue to get PIP while your claim is being reviewed.
You’ll get a letter asking you to fill in a form called ‘Award review – how your disability affects you’. Fill in the form using the notes that come with it. Send the form and any supporting information you have not shared with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) before – the form explains what to include and where to send it. You’ll need to return it within 1 month. Contact the PIP enquiry line if you need more time. DWP will review your form. If they need more information, an independent health professional might phone you to ask some questions or send a letter inviting you to an assessment. Assessments can be in person, over the phone or by video call. You’ll get a letter that tells you what will happen with your PIP. If your needs have changed, your PIP might be increased, reduced or stopped.
Because of coronavirus (COVID-19), you’ll only be invited to an assessment in person if more information is needed and you cannot do an assessment by phone or video call. Your invitation letter will explain how to attend your appointment safely,
Is it hard to get PIP?
Revealed – the hardest and easiest conditions to claim PIP for Details Published: 22 February 2023
Benefits and Work has compiled a list of over 500 conditions arranged in order of how hard it is to get an award of PIP, using the DWP’s own database.The overall average success rate for PIP claims is 52%.But this can vary greatly depending on the condition.So, for example, awards for continence related conditions tend to fall below the average:
Urge incontinence 13.7% Stress incontinence 15.7% Faecal soiling (encopresis) 23.8% Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) 26.1%
Awards for arthritis, on the other hand, are above the average:
Osteoarthritis of other single joint 56.5% Osteoarthritis of Knee 64.2% Osteoarthritis of Hip 73.8% Primary generalised Osteoarthritis 74.0% Rheumatoid arthritis 74.7%
Awards relating to mental health vary widely:
Anxiety disorders – Other / type not known 38.8% Generalised anxiety disorder 42.7% Anxiety and depressive disorders – mixed 49.6% Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 58.2% Bipolar affective disorder 61.3% Schizophrenia 69.7%
Some conditions are extremely likely to attract an award:
Dementia 94.1% Motor neurone disease 97.5% Down’s syndrome 99.6% Creutzfeldt – Jacob disease (CJD) 100%
But on its own this doesn’t tell the whole tale. For example, it doesn’t tell us what percentage of claimants got the enhanced rate of one or both components. We can drill down further into DWP statistics to get these details. But it would be an enormous task to produce this information for every condition.
And it still wouldn’t tell us whether claimants are more or less likely to get the award that they think is correct. So, we’d like to hear from readers about which conditions you think are the hardest to make a PIP claim for. You may have experience of claiming for more than one condition. You may have helped people with different conditions who have put in a claim.
Or you may consider your condition to be hard to claim for because it is treated with scepticism by some in the health professions. Based on your feedback, we will produce more information about award rates for specific conditions. Members can download the full list of over 500 conditions and percentage success rates in a pdf file entitled ‘S uccess rates for PIP claims by condition ‘ from the ‘Claims’ section of the,
How many months can PIP be backdated?
There are 3 stages to claiming PIP:
- Contact the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and fill in the PIP1 form – they can do this for you over the phone
- Fill in the ‘How your disability affects you’ form – you can choose to get a paper form by post or get an email with a link to an online form
- Go to a medical assessment
It can take up to 6 months from when you first contact the DWP to when you get your first payment. If the DWP decide you can get PIP, they’ll pay you the money you should have got from the date you started your claim. You can’t backdate PIP – this means you won’t get any money for time before you made your claim.
- your full name, address and phone number
- your National Insurance number
- your bank or building society account details
- contact details of your GP or other health professionals you deal with
- the dates and details of any stays in hospital or residential care
- your nationality or immigration status
- if you’ve been abroad for more than 4 weeks at a time in the last 3 years (you’ll need the dates and details)
Personal Independence Payment claim line Telephone: 0800 917 2222 Textphone: 0800 917 7777 Relay UK – if you can’t hear or speak on the phone, you can type what you want to say: 18001 then 0800 917 2222 You can use Relay UK with an app or a textphone.
- There’s no extra charge to use it.
- Find out how to use Relay UK on the Relay UK website.
- Video relay – if you use British Sign Language (BSL).
- You can find out how to use video relay on YouTube.
- Calling from abroad: +44 191 218 7766 Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm Calls are free from mobiles and landlines.
It should take about 20 minutes to complete the call. If you’d prefer someone else to call for you that’s fine, but you need to be with them so you can give permission for them to speak for you. The DWP will ask if you want them to send you the ‘How your disability affects you’ form by post or by email.
Do PIP assessors lie?
PIP assessments by Atos and Capita assessors found to be dishonest – A recent investigation by the Disability News Service (DNS) found evidence that healthcare professionals engaged by private sector companies Atos and Capita to carry out PIP assessments repeatedly lied in the reports they produced for the DWP.
- DNS now has more than 40 reports from claimants, detailing ways in which their assessment reports were dishonest and misleading.
- Usually, the assessors were qualified nurses.
- Ways in which assessments were inaccurate included written evidence being ignored, results of physical examinations misreported, and straightforward lying.
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What percentage of PIP claims are rejected?
Review outcomes from November 2017 to October 2022 (last five years) –
| Review Outcome | Planned Award Review | Change of Circumstance |
|---|---|---|
| Award Increased | 18% | 45% |
| Award Maintained | 50% | 34% |
| Award Decreased | 10% | 6% |
| Award Disallowed | 22% | 11% |
| Withdrawn or voluntarily relinquished | n/a | 5% |
Source: PIP Statistics to October 2022, Stat-Xplore From November 2017 to October 2022 (last five years):
- 930,000 (68%) of the 1.4 million planned award reviews resulted in an increase or no change to the level of award received by the claimant
- 290,000 (79%) of the 370,000 changes of circumstances resulted in an increase or no change to the level of award received by the claimant
- The difference reflects the fact that many PIP claimants report a change of circumstances when their condition or disability deteriorates and their needs increase
Further information on award review outcomes by a range of factors including disability is available from Stat-Xplore,