Reporting PIP change of circumstances - what happens

[Pegs11]

My sister has a combination of physical and mental health issues, which she receives PIP for. She gets standard rate daily living and standard rate mobility. She has however become significantly more mobile in the past few months and can now walk more than 200 metres most days. So she feels she doesn’t need the mobility component anymore, and wants DWP to stop paying her that part. She does however still very much need the daily living component and nothing has changed in her circumstances in this regard.

The question is, if she tells DWP she no longer wishes to claim the mobility component, will they just stop that part, or will a review of everything be triggered? I don’t want her to have to go through another gruelling assessment, it was so hard on her the first time. I have heard how easy it is to lose PIP by saying the tiniest wrong thing that they jump on and use against you, and I don’t want her to lose it all simply because she’s been honest with them about being able to go for a walk now!

I just need to know what we should prepare for here. I know she has to be honest but I want to make sure she doesn’t shoot herself in the foot and have to go through the entire assessment process again because she’s mentally very fragile.

I had to do exactly this for DS (as his appointee) recently. Unfortunately it has meant going through the whole assessment again, the form is the same one you would get sent if a review was due, same questions but asking what has changed. We reported improved mobility (enough to lose that award) and changes in a couple pf the living questions but not enough to lose enhanced daily living. Forms went in about 6 weeks ago and he has now been told he has to attend a telephone assessment just like first time (his first award was during covid). However, this MIGHT have been because his review was due at the end of this year anyway. In better news, I had help with the form from the CAB who have also said they will support us if we need to go to mandatory reconsideration.

With this kinda thing u take a chance as they can remove an award if they deem fit. When is her claim up for renewal

😞 I’m sorry you are having to go through the assessment again. I wish you the best of luck with it. It’s good that you have the CAB supporting you. I’m hoping my sister doesn’t have to go through the assessment again but maybe it’s just standard.

Her award was only just reviewed towards the end of last year, they sent a form and we filled it in and sent it back. We reported some slight improvement in her symptoms on the form, but not the walking thing as she still wasn’t able to walk very far at that point. Anyway, she never heard anything back from them and so far they haven’t asked for anything further from her. But now she wants to report the walking improvement too.

I would wait a while her mobility may decline again and it would be difficult to keep getting it adjusted

Yeah I did wonder about that. I don’t know what would be a reasonable amount of time to give it, in terms of her consistently being able to walk a good distance. There’s always that fear that someone from DWP will be observing her, and I don’t want her to get in trouble for not reporting her improvement, but at the same time, I don’t want her to report it too soon and potentially shoot herself in the foot if she gets worse again in a couple of months. There have been times in the past where she’s felt better for a while, but then always ended up going downhill again. This is the longest time she’s been feeling better, but still… How long do you reckon we should give it?

I don’t know chances are no one will be watching her etc.. she can ring and ask for a copy of her report and see what they have marked her down as etc sometimes the mobility aspect is due to anxiety etc and see what ya think from there.. I know myself I can have a couple of weeks of little pain and then bam in bed for a couple of weeks in agony

I think DS possibly got the full re-assessment because the changes reported are enough to change his entitlement (he had enough for low rate mobility having scored 10 on the second question but now I think he would probably only score 6. It's not clear cut though, they ask when the change occurred and it was gradual for DS (he's not physically impaired, its all about anxiety, communication, coping with complexities such as public transport timetables). We did have a copy of the report from his original assessment which was very useful. If your sister's mental health affects her mobility eg ability to use public transport she should score something for that as well as any remaining physical impairment.