A worked example showing how each of the 12 PIP activities can be described for someone with hearing loss or deafness. 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.
The hardest thing about putting hearing loss on a form is that most people, including some assessors, believe hearing aids fix it. They do not. Aids make sound louder, not clearer, and they lift the background as much as the voice you are trying to follow. So a person with aids in both ears may manage a quiet conversation one to one, facing the other person, and still lose almost everything in a busy room, on a bus, at a till, or when two people speak at once. If you are deaf you may rely on lipreading, on seeing faces, or on British Sign Language, and none of that works when someone speaks from behind you, covers their mouth or turns away.
What gets left off forms is the amount of guessing and the cost of it. Filling in the gaps from a few caught words, watching mouths, working out from context what was probably said, is relentless concentration, and by the middle of the afternoon there is nothing left, so you follow even less. Then there are the consequences: telephone calls you cannot take, appointment reminders left on voicemail that you never hear, appointments missed, instructions from a nurse or pharmacist half understood, and someone else having to relay or interpret so that you know what you have been told. Many people also live with tinnitus that sits on top of whatever they are trying to hear and gets louder when they are tired. Add all of that up and the usual result is withdrawal: turning down invitations, leaving the group, going quiet.
The reliability rules are what turn that into an answer the form can use. 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. Hearing a single sentence in a quiet room is not the same as following a real conversation to an acceptable standard, and passing a hearing test in a soundproof booth says nothing about a kitchen with an extractor fan running. Say what you can follow, where, with whom, and for how long before the effort runs out. Hearing aids are an aid that the form recognises for talking, listening and understanding, so it is worth stating plainly that you wear them and, just as plainly, what you still cannot follow with them in.
The example below does exactly that. It also answers honestly on the activities that hearing loss genuinely does not touch, because a form that only claims what is true reads as far more credible than one that stretches every question. 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 what you cannot hear in a kitchen and why it matters for safety: a timer, a pan boiling over, a hob left on behind you, or a smoke alarm sounding while your back is turned. Mention any vibrating timer, flashing alert or alarm pad you rely on, and anyone who looks in on you while you cook. Say plainly whether you could prepare and cook a simple meal safely on your own without those things.
Hearing loss does not usually touch this one, because it is about cutting food up, getting it to your mouth, chewing and swallowing. What counts is needing someone to cut food up or feed you, a physical difficulty holding cutlery, or needing to be reminded to eat at all, which for most people comes from another condition rather than the hearing. If you have something else going on that does that, describe it here in its own right. If eating and drinking are fine for you, leave this one alone.
Explain how much of managing treatment happens by voice: dosage instructions from a pharmacist, a nurse explaining a change over the phone, reminders left as voicemail. Mention who telephones the surgery for you, who comes in to repeat what you are told, and any review or appointment you have missed because you never heard the call. Describe what happens to your medication when that support is not there.
This question is about washing yourself, so hearing alone rarely reaches it. What counts is needing an aid or another person to wash and bathe safely, or not being able to be left alone in the bathroom, and that is worth saying if taking your aids out leaves you hearing nothing at all and someone has to stay in the house or check on you. Say plainly what the risk is and who covers it. If you wash and bathe on your own without help, leave this one alone.
This one is about getting on and off the toilet, cleaning yourself and controlling your bladder and bowel, none of which hearing normally affects. What counts is needing a rail, a raised seat or another person, or having accidents you have to manage with pads or a change of clothes. If a second condition causes any of that, describe it here rather than leaving it out because your main claim is about hearing. If none of it applies to you, leave this one alone.
Hearing does not usually come into dressing, so only claim this if something genuinely reaches it. What counts is needing an aid or help with buttons, zips, shoes and socks, taking far longer than you should, or needing prompting to dress or to change into clean clothes. Anything to do with fitting or managing hearing aids belongs under managing your treatments, not here. If you dress and undress without help, leave this one alone.
This question is about taking in written information, and ordinary glasses do not count as an aid, so hearing loss on its own usually does not reach it. What does count is being deaf from birth or early childhood with British Sign Language as your first language, so that written English is genuinely hard and somebody has to go through letters and forms with you and explain what they mean. If that is you, say so plainly. If you can read and understand letters yourself, leave this one alone and keep your spoken difficulties under talking, listening and understanding.
Hearing loss does not usually affect the sums themselves. What can count is missing information in a phone call with the bank or at a counter, so if you have had to hand money matters to someone else because of that, describe it and say what would happen without them. Be careful to keep it honest: not hearing the bank is a hearing difficulty, and it belongs under talking, listening and understanding unless it has genuinely taken the money out of your hands. If money is genuinely fine for you, leave this one alone.
Describe what happens when a journey stops going to plan: a platform change over a tannoy, a cancellation called out on a bus, a driver or guard giving directions you cannot hear. Explain whether you need someone with you on an unfamiliar route because of that, and what you have done when you have been left stranded. Keep this to following and completing the journey, not how far you can walk.
This activity is only about standing and physically walking, so hearing on its own does not limit it and most people will say they can walk more than 200 metres. What counts is a physical or balance problem that shortens the distance, so if your hearing loss comes with vertigo, Meniere's or unsteadiness that makes you stop or hold on to something, put the distance and what stops you here. Having to be extra careful crossing roads because you cannot hear traffic belongs under planning and following a journey. If walking is genuinely fine, leave this one alone.
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 hearing loss; 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 hearing loss might describe an ordinary week, 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 hearing, the situations you genuinely cannot follow, the aids you actually wear and the help you actually get or go without, because that is what the assessment is about and that is what makes an answer ring true.
Notice that not every activity has to be claimed. Hearing loss hits a small number of activities hard rather than touching all twelve, and being honest about what it does not change makes the difficulties you do describe far more believable. If your hearing loss comes with dizziness, balance problems or another condition, describe that in the activity it really affects rather than forcing it into this one. 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 hearing loss in your own words and we will write one full activity for you, free, before you pay anything.
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