A worked example showing how each of the 12 PIP activities can be described for someone with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. Every answer is written in the first person, in the plain wording assessors look for, and each one weaves in the reliability factors that decide how an activity scores.
Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are hard to put on a form because the worst of it happens in private and nobody else sees it. There is the urgency that gives you almost no warning, the accidents that follow it, the cramping pain and the blood, the exhaustion and breathlessness that come with anaemia, the diet you have had to cut back to a handful of safe foods, and the weight that keeps falling off. In a settled spell you may look and feel much better, which is exactly why a careful, matter-of-fact description of a flare matters so much.
The biggest trap is remission. Both conditions flare and settle, so what you can manage in a good spell is often nothing like what you can manage in a flare. The rules are clear that the good spell is not the test. An activity only counts as something you can do if you can do it safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and in a reasonable time. If you can start cooking a meal but have to abandon it to get to the toilet, if washing after an accident takes you an hour, if you can only face an appointment by not eating the day before, or if you can only manage a task in the two weeks between flares, then you cannot reliably do it, and that is what your answers need to show.
Continence is the part people leave out, and it is often the part that matters most on this form. There is nothing undignified about writing down how many times a day you open your bowels, that you wear pads, that you have soiled yourself, that the skin around your bottom is broken, or that you keep a commode by the bed. An assessor can only take account of what you actually tell them. The same goes for the way every outing gets planned around where the toilets are. The example below shows how to put all of that on the form plainly, activity by activity. The DWP always makes the final decision, but describing your day accurately gives your form the strongest chance of being understood.
What to cover for each one. Your paid form writes the full answers for you.
Describe how fatigue, anaemia and cramping make standing at a hob for even ten minutes hard, and how often you have to abandon what you are cooking to get to the toilet. Mention any perching stool or lighter pans you rely on, and food that has to be thrown away because you could not go back to it. Say plainly whether you could manage a simple cooked meal safely and to an acceptable standard on your worst and most common days.
Explain how a restricted diet, nausea and the fear of setting off symptoms mean you skip meals or stop eating before you go out, and mention any weight you have lost. Note any prescribed supplement drinks or nutritional support you have been given, and any tube feeding. Cover the prompting or encouragement you need to eat at all on bad days, rather than only whether you can chew and swallow.
Describe your medication and how it is given, including injections, infusions, steroid courses and the blood tests you have to attend for monitoring. Mention any help you need to inject yourself, keep to a reducing dose or follow a complicated regime, and roughly how much time it all takes each week. Include home therapies and stoma or wound care if you have them.
Explain that after an accident or in a flare you have to wash far more often and far more thoroughly, and how draining that is when you are already weak and anaemic. Mention aids such as a shower seat, grab rails or a bidet attachment, and any help you need with your back or below the waist. Describe how long washing takes on a flare day and whether you sometimes go without because you have not the energy.
Describe why you now wear only loose clothing you can get off in seconds, and how many times a day you have to change soiled clothes or a pad. Mention weakness, cramping or dizziness that makes bending down to socks and shoes hard, and any aid or help you rely on. Explain that in a flare dressing takes far longer, or that you stay in nightclothes because you cannot manage it.
A bowel condition does not usually touch your speech or your hearing, so many people answer honestly that this one is not affected. What can count is being so drained by anaemia, pain or broken sleep in a flare that you lose the thread of a conversation, need things repeated, or cannot take in what a nurse has told you. Only write that down if it is genuinely part of your day, and leave this one alone if talking and understanding are fine.
Keep this one to taking in written information rather than to eyesight. What can count is a flare leaving you so exhausted, or so distracted by pain and the need for a toilet, that you read the same paragraph of a letter over and over and still take nothing in, or that you need someone to go through hospital post with you. If you can read and understand letters and forms without help, say so plainly and move on.
Explain how the embarrassment of urgency and accidents has made you withdraw, and how much encouragement you need before you will see anyone. Describe the anxiety of being somewhere with no toilet you can rely on, and how often you cancel plans at short notice. Keep this to how you cope with people, not to the travelling itself.
A bowel condition does not usually change your grasp of prices, bills or budgeting, so this is often a straight No. What can count is post left unopened for weeks because you were too unwell to face it, or handing your accounts to somebody else because you could not get to a bank or a post office without needing a toilet. If money is genuinely fine for you, leave this one alone, because an honest answer here makes the difficulties you do describe more believable.
Say how far you can walk on a normal day and what stops you, whether that is abdominal pain, breathlessness from anaemia or the flat exhaustion of a flare. Mention that you have to stay within reach of a toilet, and how long you need to recover before you could walk that far again. Include any aid you use, and describe your worst and most common days rather than your best.
The tips above are general pointers. Your paid form gives you a full, ready-to-copy answer for all 12 activities, written from your exact conditions, medication, aids and bad days, not a general example. This is a worked example for Crohn's disease and colitis; yours is written for you. £99.99 one-off.
This is a worked example, not a script. It shows one honest way a person with Crohn's disease or colitis might describe a flare, so you can see the level of detail and the plain wording that assessors are trained to look for. Please do not copy it word for word. Your own answers should reflect your condition, your worst and most common days, the aids you actually use and the help you actually need or go without, because that is what the assessment is about and that is what makes an answer ring true.
If you have a stoma, say so plainly and describe what looking after it really involves: changing and emptying the bag, leaks and the mess they cause, the sore skin around it, and how long all of that takes on a bad day. Being honest about what your bowel condition does not change makes the difficulties you do describe more believable, so there is no need to stretch every question. If you would rather start from your own words, tell us about your health and we will write your answers from your own conditions, in the same first-person style, ready for you to read, edit and copy onto your PIP2 claim form or AR1 review form.
Tell us about your Crohn's or colitis in your own words and we will write one full activity for you, free, before you pay anything.
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