PIP mobility

carmind wrote: Am I right in thinking that a person being able to walk around their own home can only be taken as evidence that they can walk up to 20 metres. I'm sure I saw this somewhere in your guides or is it wishful thinking on my part??

PIP is a test of a claimants ability to walk outdoors, however, assessors are almost certainly going to make assumptions based on the claimant walking indoors as to their ability out of doors, so in important to deal with this issue up front,

For example; it is important to know the distances between places of activity in the home; the lounge, kitchen and toilet, to explain difficulties that the claimant might have even indoors, for example they might not use a stick because they hold onto furniture.

If the person walks slowly then this should be recorded so that an idea of their speed of walking can be calculated, although I do advice caution when doing this as whilst the maths should be simple it is also easy to make an error.

Claimants with fatigue or similar issues may slow down when walking, so their first 5m is slow but not excessively, but the next 5m is significantly slower and so on, Assessors are likely to only see them walk 5m-6m!

I do remember something about the DWP revising their guidance in favour of claimants, but I'm sure this was for ESA, however, I can't find the news article.

I have found one for PIP, but checking the latest PIP Assessment guide I do not believe that the recommendations have been implemented. See

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/2215-pip-...-for-indoor-problems

Gordon