Help

Hi Harishah

I wouldn't highlight your name and national insurance number. The pages are going to be scanned into the system, and you want all print to be as clear as possible. Using a highlighter pen could make it less clear when scanned.

How you put your information together is up to you. It just needs to be clear to the person who will be accessing it. So as long as you reference it within the form, that will be acceptable. And you should attach pages with a tag rather than staples.

BIS

Hi Harishah

You need to show that you are affected for the majority of the time. So are you in pain for four out of seven days and what does that pain affect you from doing?

You are not required to walk pain free but any pain that restricts the distance that you can walk should be taken into account.

Specifically for the Moving Around activity, if you are able to walk but you are in severe pain when doing so, then you can argue that your walking is not to a necessary standard and should be disregarded.

The legal test requires you to stand and then move (walk), so if you have problems getting up then you should document these as well.

If you walk slowly then it must take you at least twice the time to cover the distance as a healthy person would, this could be down to the speed of your walking but could also be the result of having to stop.

You must be able to repeat the distance, so if you could walk it once but not then be able to walk it again within a reasonable timescale then you should be classed as unable to repeat the activity.

I'm afraid I can't tell you how to show your walking is more restricted but things you need to think about is what you can't do, for example where can you walk in your house, how far is the toilet from where you normally sit, things that will count against you are any trips that you make outside, so for example, how do you do your shopping?

You must be able to walk the distance you can, reliably and on the majority of days, both these terms are defined in the PIP Claim guide benefitsandwork.co.uk/guides-for-claimants/pip

So you need to explain what you can do, how you are limited and why.

In regards to ticking boxes, if you do not know which box to tick leave them empty but write next to them see below and then write your explanation.

Remember it needs to be the majority of the time, so when you say good days and bad days you need to try and explain how long they last. I was helping a client last week to do a submission, they talked about good and bad days, they had COPD which affected them 24/7, what they were talking about was bad days and worse days, on worse days they just stayed in bed, on bad days they could get up but everything was a struggle.

Remember you have to paint a picture in words that the assessor can understand. Everything should be in black and white with no grey areas.

Good luck

Gary