PIP2 form filler

What the PIP2 form is, and why it is hard

When you make a new Personal Independence Payment claim, the DWP sends you the PIP2 form, titled "How your disability affects you". It runs to dozens of pages and asks you to describe, in your own words, how your health affects 12 everyday activities, from preparing food to moving around.

Most people find it hard for the same reasons. It is tiring to fill in when you are already unwell. It asks the same style of question 12 times over. And it is easy to write too little, because you play down your difficulties or describe a good day rather than a typical one. The form only mentions it briefly, mostly in the information booklet that comes with it, but the assessment is really about whether you can do each activity reliably: safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and in a reasonable time. Miss that, and a genuine difficulty can read as if it is not a problem.

What you get

We write a complete set of answers for the whole PIP2 form, in plain first-person English, so you can read them, adjust anything that is not quite you and copy them onto your form in your own hand.

• All 12 activities, Q3 to Q14, in first person, each covering your bad days, any aids you use and the help you need but may not get: Q3 Preparing food, Q4 Eating and drinking, Q5 Managing your treatments, Q6 Washing and bathing, Q7 Using the toilet, Q8 Dressing and undressing, Q9 Talking, listening and understanding, Q10 Reading, Q11 Mixing with other people, Q12 Managing money, Q13 Planning and following a journey, and Q14 Moving around with its distance band.
• Section 1 medication laid out for you, so you can list your conditions, your medication (with any side effects) and your treatments in the right place.
• Section 2 health professionals, a clear prompt for listing the GP, consultant, specialist nurse or therapist who knows you best.
• Q15 additional information, space to add anything you have not already covered, cross-referenced to the earlier question numbers.
• Descriptor guidance for your eyes only, a short note on each activity explaining which difficulty level your answer points to, so you understand your own form. This guidance is never meant to be copied onto the form itself.

What one answer looks like

Here is a sample answer for Q6, Washing and bathing, written in the first person for someone with rheumatoid arthritis and chronic fatigue. Your own answers are built from your conditions, not this example.

How it works

Why the wording can make a difference

The DWP decides every claim, and no service can change that or promise a result. What good wording can do is make sure your form describes your difficulties fully and accurately, in the terms the assessment actually uses.

Our answers are built around the reliability rules. They describe your typical and bad days rather than your best ones, because a descriptor applies if it fits on more than half of the days. They focus on what you cannot do safely or have to stop partway through, and they name any help you need even when you do not currently get it, because an unmet need still counts. Every answer stays in the first person and in your own conditions, so it reads as you, not as a template. The descriptor letters and points sit only in the private note, never in the answer text, so nothing on your form looks coached.

We do not invent difficulties or exaggerate. If an activity only affects you a little, the answer keeps to what is true and does not overstate it. An honest, complete form is the strongest foundation you can give your claim.

Renewing an existing award instead of making a new claim? The review form is a different shape, and we cover it too on our PIP review form (AR1) filler.