Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of PIP descriptors for the assessment of people with fluctuating conditions.

The Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment criteria account for fluctuations by considering an individual’s ability to undertake 12 specific daily activities over a 12-month period.  It is essential for the assessment to accurately reflect the impact of variations in an individual's level of impairment - this is important for all health conditions and impairments, not only those which more typically fluctuate. For each activity, if a descriptor applies more than 50 per cent of the time, that descriptor should be chosen.

All health professionals are required to assess individuals in line with the statutory requirements, including: whether an individual can complete each of the 12 activities; the manner in which they can do it; and whether they can complete each activity “safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and in a reasonable time period”.

Many of the changes set out in Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper aim to improve our assessment of fluctuating conditions, such as the way we use medical evidence, and developing the capability of our assessors. We will also explore options for introducing a new way of gathering evidence of fluctuation in a person’s condition before their assessment.